By Peter StruijkAn introduction by Rainer himself:I played National guitars almost all of my life. It started as a fan of Rory Gallagher who always played acoustic sets in all of his concerts. Especially his songs on the National Triolian knocked me out. And so I startet guitar at the age of 13 trying to figure out what he was doing. Rory always explained where he got the bluessongs from. So I found Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Scrapper Blackwell (who actually played the same model!). I worked as a cabdriver for years and finally ended up working in a guitarshop in Munich where they sold new Dobro guitars and old Vintage Nationals. Early in the 90's the shopowners were so dissappointed with the quality of the new Dobro guitars, that we decided to try our own line of CONTINENTAL Resonatorguitars after we found some guys in Slovakia who offered to produce the metalbodies and the resonators for us. The original inventors of National came exactly from that area: John Dopyera and his brothers! We came on the market with our CONTINENTAL Tricone model first and Don Young and Gregor McGaineswere first with their NATIONAL RESOPHONIC Style O singlecone model. We met at the musicfair in L.A. right at the big earthquake in 1993. Real funny and dedicated guys. And of course Bob Brozman belonged to the gang, too. I learned a lot from this fantastic musician. He opened my musical taste for Hawaiian music, Calypso and all that stuff. I also startet playing Ukulele, Hawaaiinguitar and Mandolin by then.In Munich I jumped right into a great bluesscene at that time. There was a fantastic bluesclub and a lot of good players that got me a start playing my bluessongs. With Hans O. Graf, one of the shopowners of the AMI company, I started a band called THE SONS OF THE DESERT. We had a lot of fun, playing a lot of gigs and recording four CDs together. In 2002 I startet to work fulltime as a musician and guitarteacher and a writer for the german GUITAR magazin where I explained a bluessong every month with all the background of the players and the music. In 2011 I met Tanja Wirz in Switzerland and we started our duo THE RED HOT SERENADERS. Tanja played Vintage Jazz and Swing all of her life and this added another dimension to my playing. We are playing together since then and recorded two CDs. We also organize a lot of workshops in France and Switzerland, where we teach all about Blues and Jazz and guitar and singing."My favourite National is the first good one I got in 1990 – the 1932 Style 0 Serialnumber S3666. I played that guitar on every gig I did since then. That must be around 2000 gigs. Great guitar with a lot of bite in the bass, power in the midrange and sweet, ringing trebles".

By Manfred CurinckxCasey Bill Weldon, the Enigmatic Blues and Slide Guitar Marvel a.k.a The Hawaiian Guitar WizardFor this month’s article I will be stepping away from the early blues of the Southern States, putting the spotlight on an early, but to some extent forgotten, star of the blues who mainly performed and recorded in Chicago in the 1930’s.An in depth study into Casey Bill was made by blues researcher Jim O’Neal, founder of the Living Blues Magazine. In number 228 from dec 2018/jan 2019, he provides us with a lot of information. His great work will be the basis for most of the following on Casey Bill Weldon’s life.Life and persona of Casey Bill Weldon:Piecing together the life and music of Casey Bill Weldon is not an easy task. Although he was an enormously skilled and succesful musician who played and performed with many greats of his time, not much official documentation is at hand. There is a lot of contradiction and ambiguity in the data, mainly due to his double name, use of different names during his career and also stories and mistaken recollections from fellow musicians with whom he played.Let’s start with the name. ‘Casey’ is believed to be a performing and recording name. It indicaties his link to Kansas City, also known as K.C. His official name is thought to have been Nathan – William Weldon – Hammond. This can be assumed as correct by a registration card from Chicago, stating his residence on State Street. His signature is on the bottom of the card. It also shows his birth date as Feb. 2nd 1903 in Springfield, Arkansas. A birth certificate found, shows his birth name and date as William Weldon, born Feb. 2nd 1901, in Morrilton Arkansas, only about 10 miles south west of Springfield. His father and mother are mentioned as Jacob Weldon and Caroline Hamilton.Jim O’Neal looked up the Social Security Death Index entry for William Weldon. William applied for social security in Illinois, with a last address in Kansas City. In the application, Weldon gave his birth date as February 1, 1902 and the place as Schenute, which is probably Chanute, Kansas. Chanute is a town at the junction of two railroads, one of which is the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Line, also known as the Katy. Casey mentions a train called ‘Katy’ in his song ‘Big Katy Adam’, recorded for Vocalion in 1936 with Black Bob on piano and probably Big Bill Broonzy on second guitar (info Stefan Wirz). On the social security application, his parents are again entered as Jacob Weldon and Caroline Hamilton and his wife as Luetta Johnson. Casey Bill Weldon is sometimes said to have been married to Geeshie Wiley, but this is not proven to this date as far as I know.On top of all this, William Weldon is often confused with Will Weldon, the guitarist who was with the Memphis Jug Band. Will Weldon was believed to have been briefly married to and played with Memphis Minnie in Memphis, Tennessee. No marriage record was found however. Will Weldon was a lot younger than Casey Bill. Will Weldon died in Memphis in 1934, when Casey Bill Weldon was in Chicago. When Casey Bill Weldon’s records were put on Vinyl, Will Weldon’s photo was regurlarly used, adding more to confusion.Casey Bill did know Memphis Minnie though. He played on a recording session with her in Chicago on Oct 31, 1935. These recordings were for Bluebird, one of the songs being ‘When the Sun Goes Down’, one of Memphis Minnie’s most well known Chicago recordings.The Kansas City connection for Casey Bill is quite strong, not only because of the ‘Casey’ and the fact that he died there eventually, but also because a lot of his family moved to Kansas City. The Kansas City music of that time had a big influence of his music and guitar style. The city had a bustling scene with swing and jazz/blues orchestras in the 1910’s and 1920’s that popularized the use of the hawaiian steel guitar since electric guitars were not around yet. Casey Bill Weldon and Tampa Red are known to have used plugged in steel guitars for recording sessions at the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Illinois in 1938, so they can be seen as true pioneers of electric blues guitar. The same can be said for Memphis Minnie.There is only one authenticated known photo of William Casey Bill Weldon. It comes from the Chicago Defender, date Jan 11, 1941. It shows guitarist Charles Church, next to Casey Bill Weldon advertising them playing at the Spot Tavern, 734 East 43rd Street Chicago on Sunday afternoons at 4.30 cocktail hour.William Weldon passed away September 28, 1972 in Kansas City. A local paper, the Kansas City Call, published the obituary. Contact with the funeral chapel and cemetary by Jim O’Neal led him to a nephew of William Weldon, named Charles Hammond. This brought the Hammond name forward again and shed light on some of the confusion. Charles revealed that they used two names for Casey Bill, being both William Weldon and Nathan Hammond. His State of Missouri death certificate verifies that ‘Nathan Hammond, a.k.a William Weldon, was a retired musician who died at General Hospital of undetermined, apparantly natural causes.’ Charles Hammond said William’s parents were named Jacob Hammond and Caroline (no last name mentioned).

The Boston-based multi-band leader, producer, indie label owner, singer-songwriter, and guitarist leads the electric blues quartet Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers with her husband and label co-owner, bass player Jim Countryman. This outfit has released three well-received albums. The couple also founded the neo-new wave-y Afro-pop group, Lovewhip, which has released four critically-acclaimed albums. Erin has issued a pair of acoustic blues albums, and maintains an acoustic blues duo with Jim playfully nicknamed “CBD,” Country Blues Duo. In addition, Erin is also an in-demand fingerstyle blues educator who in 2016 released the DVD Women of the Country Blues Guitar through the esteemed Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. Select collective career highlights include rave press in LA Weekly, Boston’s Weekly Dig, Boston Herald, DownBeat Magazine, and Living Blues Magazine, among other outlets. She’s a Boston Music Award Winner and a five-time BMA nominee, and she is a New England Music Award winner and an International Blues Challenge Semifinalist. Erin has had songs featured on Showtime’s Shameless, MTV’s Veronica Mars, Paris Hilton’s BFF, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and many other shows.  Erin has jammed with iconic acoustic blues artists Phil Wiggins (of Cephas & Wiggins), Warner Williams and Jay Summerour, Eleanor Ellis, Jontavious Willis, and James Montgomery. She’s opened for legends such as ZZ Top, T-Model Ford, Honeyboy Edwards, Roy Bookbinder, and James Cotton. Erin has played at the House of Blues, Caffe Lena, Club Passim, the International Blues Challenge, South by Southwest, the New York State Blues Festival, and many other festivals and venues around the US. Her Country Blues Duo has toured Spain and the UK twice. 

John “Greyhound” Maxwell brings his singular approach to slide guitar and mandolin, paying homage to the craft and tradition of the masters, while infusing the music with fresh energy. David Lindley is quoted as saying, “John is the finest bottleneck slide player I’ve heard in a long time.”

The German Blues picker and singer Rainer Brunn started playing Blues– and Folk Guitar as an autodidact at the age of 17 before he began his studies in Classical Guitar with Kurt Hiesl at Meistersinger Conservatory in Nuremberg. After his studies Rainer played a lot of Folk and American Oldtime music and gradually came back to Acoustic Blues. 

Veronica Sbergia & Max De Bernardi passionately play country blues and ragtime, hokum, jug band and rural music from the 20’s and 30’s.An irresistible blend of blues, ragtime, vaudeville music and hillbilly music, played using strictly acoustic instruments such ukuleles, washboard, kazoo, double bass and guitars. They love entertaining the audience and keeping this precious musical heritage alive, faithfully reproducing its original sound whilst playing it with a modern twist. With The Red Wine Serenaders they won the European Blues Challenge, held in Toulouse (FR) in 2013 and were selected in January 2015 representing Italy for the International Blues Challenge in Memphis (TN). They continue to play and record their music, traveling and touring everywhere the music will lead them. Check their tour dates on www.maxandveronica.com

By Manfred CurinckxMeanwhile in Alabama...Alabama, when it comes to blues history, doesn’t seem equally reputed as it’s fellow states Mississippi,Georgia, the Carolina’s or Texas. So why is that?Answering that question is not so easy. Several factors must have been at play, causing the Alabama bluesto become less documented and somewhat missing its deserved place in music history. By no means the blues in the 1920’s and 1930’s was less prevalent in Alabama than in its neighboring state Mississippi. Field researchers, Folklorists and recorders for Library Of Congress Alan and John Lomax combed through the Alabama counties and prisons, looking for and recording blues men and women. This luckily gave us the opportunity to somehow reconstruct a view on what the early blues in Alabama was like. The geography and location of Alabama had an enormous influence on the local blues and folk music in the 19th and early 20th century. The Southern and Central part of the State has very fertile soil. Farms and plantations for cotton were abundant. This was the area were the early blues was influenced largely by the songs and traditions of the slaves.Here we can find the ‘Black Belt’, famous for its blues history. The name mainly relates to the darkness of the soil, to lesser extent to the skin colour of the people living and working there, although this area was where the african decendent population mainly lived, many related to the slaves of the decades before them. Typical for the blues in that area is the similarity to Mississippi Delta and Country blues. Cross border migration, similar working and living conditions and day to day problems (like the boll weevil infestation for instance) contributed largely to that. There were other influences however that affected the sound of the early blues in Alabama. The Appalachian Mountain range, running into the North of the State, and the State of Georgia to the east, argely affected the sound, adding Piedmondstyle and Jazz influence to mix. A clear picture of the early blues is offered by the Alabama Public Television film "Alabama Black Belt Blues". In this film the early Lomax and Ruby Pickens Tartt recordings of Vera Hall, Dock Reed, Rich Amerson and others bring the music to the fore and demonstrate the blues tradition, which is still very strong there today. The movie explains the role of the blues in the region from slavery onward, in cotton fields, church pews, prisons and juke joints. The recorded artists naturally give us the best idea of what the music was like, and there were many among which Bo Weavil Jackson, Ed Bell, Big Mama Thornton, Vera Hall, Lucille Bogan, Daddy Stovepipe (Johnny Watson), Sonny Scott, Clifford Gibson, Cow Cow Davenport... And let’s not forget the great Louisiana Red, who was born in Bessemer, Alabama in 1932. Johnny Shines lived in Alabama for a large part of his life. Another very important blues guitarist from Alabama was Ike Zimmerman. I will also mention W.C. Handy as well and some Jazz artists like Dinah Washington and Nat King Cole, but since my focus is on early blues guitar I will leave the honour to documenting them to others.

By Manfred Curinckx.I’m delighted to take you back to the early days of Mississippi blues with this article on the great musician Charley Patton. He is rightfully considered as one of the most impressive, important and influential bluesmen that ever recorded. But who was he? He was a man of mixed race, said to be part African-American, part White, part Native American, born in 1891 in the Edwards/Bolton area in Mississippi. That is somewhat halfway between Vicksburg and Jackson, just south of the Delta. The Mississippi Delta is often thought to be the area where the Mississippi joins the Gulf of Mexico, but that is not the case. The Delta is an area between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River, stretching to the north roughly from Vicksburg towards Memphis Tennessee. Charley was not a tall man, standing only about 5 and a half foot. His parents were sharecroppers. There is debate on who his biological father was, Bill Patton or as per a legend a man called Henderson Chatmon. Henderson was an early suitor of Charley’s mother. He was the head of the Chatmon family, of which various members formed and played in The Mississippi Sheiks. At the end of the 1890’s, the entire Patton family moved north to the Dockery Plantation close to Ruleville, in the heart of the Delta. Dockery farm was started by Will Dockery as a large cotton plantation in 1895. It was there that the young Charley met a man called Henry Sloan, a guitar player/musician that used to live in Charley’s native area and had moved to Dockery a couple of years prior to the Patton family. Henry was reportedly a great guitar player of who we sadly have no recordings, excelling in the blues style that would make Charley famous later on. By no means Charley invented the blues, nor was he the first to record blues. Henry reportedly taught Charley to play guitar but it wouldn’t take long before Charley became skilled. Already in his late teens, he was a fine blues guitar player, perfomer and songwriter. Another early blues pioneer, named Willie Brown, also lived at Dockery. Charley and Willie often played together on the plantations and juke joints in the Delta area in the early 1920’s, and Willie would often accompany Charley on his recordings later on from the end of the 1920’s. Other great musicians that worked at Dockery were Tommy Johnson, Son House, David (Honeyboy) Edwards and Pop (Roebuck) Staples. They all performed and made name as Delta blues players in the area on plantations, picknicks, fish fries, in juke joints….2 other great blues guitar players would soon follow, Robert Johnson and Chester Burnett (Howling Wolf), both of them being heavily influenced by Charley from seeing him play in juke joints (often with Willie Brown and Son House). Charley made his first recordings in 1929 and would regularly do so until 1934. His recordings like Pony Blues, High Water Everywhere, Dry Well Blues, Mississippi Boll Weavil Blues, Pea Vine Blues … provide us with a window on Charley’s world at that time. High Water Everywhere tells us about the great flooding of the Mississippi River in 1927, following almost continuous rain from the second half of 1926 until april 1927.

By Enrico BaggioI am Enrico, an Italian musician. I play both the acoustic and electric guitar. I love playing slide with my resonator and lap steel guitars. I play mandolino and ukulele too and I like making music in electric and acoustic situations I love shooting videos of me playing in places that have something special, either for their history or natural landscape or their beauty and magic.

Vrijwel ons gehele assortiment is afkomstig uit Amerika, Canada tot aan de uithoeken van Europa. Als het enigszins mogelijk is gaan wij er zelf voor op pad om de parels er tussenuit te vissen. Dit keer was ik samen met Erwin van The Guitar Company in Toulousein Zuid-Frankrijk. "Daar zijn toch boerenprotesten?!" Uh, ja dat klopt..Zo eigenwijs dat we zijn en vol moed om weer mooie aanwinsten op te sporen, hebben we het erop gewaagd om de reis te maken. Na een heel kort nachtje vertrok ik richting Rijsbergen om Erwin op te pikken. Vanaf daar zou het nog ongeveer 10 uur rijden zijn. Dat werden er nog 18.. Met regelmaat hield de snelweg gewoon op. Staan er dan geen borden voor omleidingen of had je het niet aan oom agent kunnen vragen? Nee, daar doen ze niet aan in Frankrijk (aan wc-brillen ook niet trouwens!). Eenmaal aangekomen in Toulouse gauw wat gegeten en op naar het hotel. De volgende dag was de "dealerdag" van de beurs en hebben we ons best gedaan om wat goede deals te maken en andere winkeleigenaren te ontmoeten. Toen we met verschillende mensen hadden gesproken dat we die dag ook weer terug moesten, zeiden zij "ONMOGELIJK! Vandaag is de ergste dag met de protesten". Maar we gaan het toch doen, vertelde ik. Na de landkaart te hebben bestudeerd om met een boog om het ergste stuk heen te rijden en de nodige visitekaartjes uitgewisseld te hebben, vertrokken wij weer richting Nederland.Bij het begin ging het goed. Maar toen het donker werd was het einde van de snelweg weer in zicht. Letterlijk na uren door regen, mist, onverharde bospaden en na uiting van mijn algemene kijk op de medemens, leek er toch weer goede hoop en hebben we zelfs nog kunnen lachen. Na wederom een vermoeiende reis van 18 uur was ik net op tijd thuis om mijn lieve vrouw en kinderen goedemorgen te wensen. De gescoorde items van Erwin zijn al op zijn site terug te vinden. theguitarcompany.nlBenieuwd naar onze aanwinsten? Stay tuned..

Dobro and John DopyeraEen korte inleidingSpeelt iemand op een resonator gitaar, dan speelt hij op een Dobro. Teminste, zo wordt het vaak genoemd. Net zoals dat iemand Luxaflex verward met jaloezieën. Net als Luxaflex is Dobro in eerste instantie geen soort gitaar maar een merk. Dat merk werd in 1928 opgericht door de toen 35-jarige John Dopyera. John Dopyera (officieel Ján Dopjera) was een van Austria-Hungary (Slowakije) afkomstige uitvinder en instrumentmaker die op 15-jarige leeftijd naar Amerika emigreerde. In 1925 werd hij door George Beauchamp gevraagd om een gitaar te ontwikkelen die meer volume zou hebben. Al gauw kwam hij met het idee om een "cone" te gebruiken als mechanische speaker. En met "een" cone bedoel ik eigenlijk drie, want zo ontstond de eerste Tricone. Samen met o.a. zijn broers Emil en Rudy begonnen zij National String Instrument Corporation. Na onenigheid verliet John dit bedrijf en begon hij, jawel! DOBRO! Met een net ander systeem (Spider cone) en één i.p.v. drie conen, ontstond er een totaal ander instrument en toch ook wel een andere doelgroep. Waar National in eerste instantie gericht was op Hawaiian style, trok de spider cone meer naar de Country en Bluegrass. Het bedrijf was een succes en door de grote verkoop werd zelfs Regal in Chicago ingeroepen om ook voor Dorbo te bouwen om het volledige land te kunnen voorzien. Er zijn dus Regal (met logo) resonator gitaren maar ook Dobro gitaren (met Dobro logo) die niet door Dobro in Californie gebouwd werden, maar door Regal in Chicago. Op een gegeven moment was de stilte wedergekeerd en kwamen de beide bedrijven samen in de vorm van de National Dobro Company. Omstreeks 1941 werd de productie vanwege de oorlog, niet al die oorlogen van nu, maar de Tweede Wereld oorlog wel te verstaan, beeindigd. In de latere jaren van John en zijn broers bleven zij gitaren bouwen onder o.a. de naam Valco en nog later O.M.I. (Original Musical Instruments). Zij brachtenj de meer traditionele metal en wood bodies weer tot leven. Er werd veel geld verdiend, maar echt rijk ervan is John er niet van geworden. In 1988 overleed hij op 94- jarige leeftijd, maar.. The legend always continues...Meer weten? Kom langs en neem brood mee..:-)

Met regelmaat vertel ik wat over de oudere inmiddels al lang verteerde artiesten uit de jaren 20 en 30. De muzikanten die de meeste hedendaagse artiesten totaal overbodig maken. Maarrr, er zijn uitzonderingen! Zo zal ik af en toe ook iemand uitlichten die ik aanbeveel om naar te luisteren. Deze keer is dat Anders Landelius A.K.A Slidin' Slim.