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Jan 15 2008

Merle Travis: Lost John From Bowling Green

Posted by clarkspicks in blues, country, fingerstyle, guitar, music, travis picking, tags: , , , , , , ,

One of the many people for whom a finger picking guitar style is named, Merle Travis’ influence is seen in the playing of Doc Watson, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed and many other fine musicians. Merle’s playing is characterized by the use muted bass strings, extended, jazzy sounding chords, walking bass runs, and a smooth sophisticated delivery, “Travis Picking.” There is a story about a stranger hearing a recording of Merle Travis, solo, and remarking “Those guys sure can play the guitar.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm and is filed under blues, country, fingerstyle, guitar, music, travis picking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Merle Travis: Lost John From Bowling Green”
  1. clarkspicks.com » Elizabeth Cotton: Freight Train says: June 14th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

    […] in Chapel Hill North Carolina and made up her own songs. Her playing style is similar to that of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins but upside down. In folk music circles this alternating bass fingerstyle is […]

  2. clarkspicks.com » The Delmore Brothers: Freight Train Boogie says: December 1st, 2008 at 12:32 am

    […] steel guitar, harmonica and eventually electric guitar. The most notable addition was guitarist Merle Travis, who’s extended instrumental breaks in later Delmore Brothers records brought him to the […]

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  • Welcome to Clark's Picks, a blog about music.
    One day I was cruising YouTube, playing videos of various guitarists and I said to my wife " I'm just amazed that I can be sitting here watching Doc Watson's fingers for free." It dawned on me that it would be a valuable service to share these gems with other people. The videos posted here are the ones that really caught my eye.











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