Now, before y’all jump into my feces or attempt to excavate me another anal canal (:D) just know that I don’t mean to malign my hero in any way. I love his music and I love the man, but as an amateur guitarist myself, I would like to know how good he was on his axe.
IIRC, Elvis wasn’t that hot a picker, but he made it to the top. Fine for me if Mr. Cash wasn’t that good either, but I would just like to know, because I am learning many of his tunes on my guitar as well.
As an icon and influential person in the field, he was almost without peer.
If you want to find some real pickers in that genre or similar genres - try the bluegrassers - they tend to blow the country guys out of the water in terms of chops and technical ability.
(Of course many of the BG guys play quite a bit of traditional country as well)
Some really killer FP’ers that come to mind are:
Doc Watson!!!
Tony Rice
Steve Kaufman
Harvey Reid
Norman Blake
Ricky Skaggs
Jack Lawrence
Merle Watson
That’s only on guitar mind you - BG sports some monster players on every instrument - too many to list
Every one of those guys is well worth checking out.
Thanks Krebnar and welcome to our somewhat dysfunctional family!
I don’t know if you’ll agree with me, but I think I would add John Fahey (Read How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life) and Leo Kottke to that list!
Of course I’m an old-timer who’s at the point where he can hide his own easter eggs, so what do I know? I do love Doc and Merle, however, as well as Willie Nelson. I also know that Scaggs plays a mean mandolin.
As Cash would be the first to point out, the distinctive electric guitar sound on his early records came from guitarist Luther Perkins, not Cash himself.
But Cash’s chunka-chunka style was hugely influential on rock and roll. I have heard it argued (and argued myself, as I am doing now) that the archtypal rock and roll beat evolved from bluesmen who were imitating the sound of trains. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Johnny Cash’s early work.
Well, depends on what you mean by “good”. Great guitarists know when not to play as well has weedly weedly weedly noises.
Cash and Elvis were both naturally great rhythm players. I’d say above average. Ever audition guitarists? all of them can solo…hardly any can keep a steady rhythmic chunka chunka.
Cash used what’s called a sock rhythm or chop rhythm, which is all over the honky tonk music that preceded him. He didn’t invent that rhythm or even popularize it, he just made it his trademark. In any case, Cash made his first recordings in 1954, the same year Elvis debuted, and I don’t think he had much of an influence on the evolving rock & roll sound. Rock & roll definitely influenced him, though–listen to “Get Rhythm” and his demo recording of “Rock and Roll Ruby.” His guitarist, Luther Perkins, was widely imitated in country for a while, and Cash’s vocal style was sometimes copied in country circles, too, but I don’t hear a lot of Cash in rock & roll. He had some devotees in rock–Bob Luman for one–but he wasn’t “hugely” influential there.
As for the train->blues->rock theory, IMO all those stories you hear about rock & roll being rooted in this or that one thing are bunk. From the beginning there was rampant diversity in rock & roll, with artists pulling in country, blues, swing, and boogie rhythms left and right, so I dispute the claim that there even is such a thing as an archetypal rock & roll beat. What is it? The fast shuffle on “Don’t Be Cruel,” the swing beat from “Rock Around the Clock,” or the Merle Travis/Arthur Crudup rhythm you hear all over rockabilly records?
I’m not saying Cash invented the beat, I’m just saying you can hear the train a comin’ especially clearly in his guitar playing. And, while it’s difficult to meaningfully talk about rythmns on a message board, I submit that both “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Rock Around the Clock” exhibit variations on the archtypal rock beat. That “train track” accent pattern is still apparent in the punk rock of the '70s. I will conceed your point that it probably came from honkey tonk (which was itself influenced by the blues).
Anybody got any more hairs Electrically and I can split?
If you listen to Jenks Tex Carman’s early '50s recording of “Dixie Cannonball” he does a great imitation of a train with his guitar, but to do it he has to stray from the sock rhythm he uses in the rest of the song. It sounds just like a train but nothing like rock & roll or Cash’s Carter Family one-two beat.
I don’t aim to split hairs here, I just think the train story is a romantic fable. Similarly, I once heard someone claim that rock & roll was born in Civil War army camps where black and white soldiers would jam around the campfire.
Ages ago, I saw an interview with Johnny on Later with Bob Costas. Costas said that Johnny was a great guitarist, Johnny corrected him and said that he wasn’t, and that he only knew three chords, which is why so many of his songs sound the same.
It was this interview that made me respect Cash. Costas was a gushing fan heaping tons of praise on Cash. Cash was nothing but humble in the interview, pointing out his failings, and taking great pains to correct many of the fallacies about him. It was quite obvious that Cash wasn’t well educated, but he was highly intelligent.
