There’s nothing quite so entrancing as the sound of the standard guitar or dobro doing its imitation of the human voice. No other musical instruments come so close to the laughing, crying, singing voice of mankind, and that’s very possibly why the instrument has become so popular in the western world.

If you’ve listened to music at all in the last ten years or so, you’ve undoubtedly noticed, or at least heard a style of guitar playing which most approximates the human voice cords. It’s called Bottleneck or slide style guitar playing and was first seen in rock through people like Jeff Beck and Michael Bloomfield in the mid-sixties, then later in the styles of Ry Cooder (played slide tracks on Rolling Stones LP), Mick Taylor, Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop (not so much anymore), Duane Allman (also Dick Betts), and a motley heap of others.

When one begins running down slide or bottleneck guitar techniques, he is invariably talking about the technique of the vocal cord, for to get into the feeling of slide guitar, one should get into the sounds of the human voice. So if you’re into it, the first thing is to stop and listen very carefully to the voice in its natural environment. Listen how people talk, how they raise their voices in sentences and how they sometimes place emphasis and accents on certain phrases when they are in different moods. There’s a universal inflection we all share when we’re happy, just as when we’re sad and each of these vocal differences should be observed carefully to get just the right perspective into good slide playing.

Another aspect of picking up the bottleneck/slide style is to attempt to sing, whether your voice is something akin to, as Leo Kottke describes his own, “geese farts,” or if your voice is a regular Rudy Vallee. Whether or not you are on key is not as crucial to your guitar playing habits as where you are placing the notes and accents as you sing. Singing is important to the good slide guitarist because if you can’t organize the musical phrases in your head, how are you going to do it on the guitar? This is a point worth spending a day’s run-down, about, since many guitarists learn from 'without, instead of from within; this is particularly directed toward the “Hot licks kids” who spend so much time copying others’ styles that they forget the whole purpose of the trip, their own individuality, and their own self-development. As Johnny Winter once told me, “Play your own style, do it your own way. Play for enjoyment, not to impress other people/’

My first experience with slide or bottleneck style guitar was with Fred McDowell and his Country Boys doing a number called “Shake ’Em On Down,” on Arhoolie’s The Roots of American's Music (2001/2002).-Then, on that same LP, I heard Jesse Fuller doing slide on the standard, “Amazing Grace.” I liked the style so much that I immediately picked up three more McDowell albums, Fred McDowell and His Blues Boys (1046), Fred McDowell Vol. 2 (F1027), and Mississippi Delta Blues - Fred McDowell (F1020), all on Arhoolie. I later found out that Fred tuned his guitar to open chords E, Em, and G, and that to get that weird sound, he placed a slide on this third finger, left hand and used his other fingers to fret. This technique, I learned later, was related to hillbilly Hawaiian guitar and was used by other Delta artists like Bukka White and Robert Johnson. In the album notes to one of those Arhoolie albums, Fred said, “When I play — if you pay attention — what I sing, the guitar sings too, and what the guitar say, I say.”

The actual technique and tools vary with the artist. Duane Allman used a Coridicin bottle on the third finger; Johnny Winter uses a metal tube on the fourth finger; Ry Cooder uses a vinegar bottleneck on the fourth finger; and Dick Betts also used a Coricidin bottle, only his is on the second finger. So the lesson is that you should place the bottleneck or metal (hard, slick surfaced) tube on just about any finger you want, depending on which fingers feel most comfortable to do the chording.

As far as picking up the slide technique, there are a few good sources out. If you can learn by ear, you might also want to try those Fred McDowell LP’s from Arhoolie', or perhaps you might want to try for the very hard-to-get Robert Johnson LPs: the Columbia reissue, King of the Delta Blues Singers (CL 1654); Blues Roots/ Mississippi (RBF Records 14); Mississippi Blues (1927-1941) (Belzona> 1001); or The Mississippi Blues No. 3 (OJL 17). Robert Johnson is generally acclaimed by today’s musicians as the first and the finest.

If you’re not too good in picking up this style by ear, you might want to try what I consider the best book on the technique of slide guitar called Slide Guitar (Green Note Publications, P.O. Box 4187, Berkeley, CA 94704, $4.95 with plastic disc included). Also, since most of the acoustic slide playing is done in open tuning, you might want to check out two books on open tunings entitled Stefan Grossman’s Book of Guitar Tunings (Amsco Music Publishing Co., 33 W. 60th St., NY, NY 10023, $2.95) and Jerry Silverman’s A Folksinger’s Guide To Chords and Tunings (Oak Publications, 33 W. 60th St., NY, NY 10023, $2.95). Not onfy are these publications helpful in the art of slide playing, but they’re also just about the only publications out. on the subject. Occasionally, you’ll see some articles on slide playing which will have some good ideas, like the March 1973 issue of Sound Blast on page 15 (published by David Firth Productions, 29 Carcoola Rd., St. Ives, NSW), or in Guitar. Player Magazine (348 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos, CA 95030), or in Guitar Magazine, February 1972 issue (8 Horse and Dolphin Yard, Macclesfield St., London Wl). Whatever your course, set a sail and go!

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P.S. Arhoolie’s address is: Box 9195, Berkeley, CA 94709 ^