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Merle Travis
Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, his songs' lyrics were often about the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are " Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", " I Am a Pilgrim", and " Dark as a Dungeon". He is best known today, though, for his unique guitar style, still called Travis picking by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb, while melodies are plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977. He is considered by some to be one of the most influent ...
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Five Minutes To Live
''Five Minutes to Live'' is a 1961 Cinema of the United States, American neo-noir crime film directed by Bill Karn. It was retitled ''Door-to-Door Maniac'' for an American International Pictures rerelease in 1966. The film stars Johnny Cash, in his first theatrical film role, Donald Woods (actor), Donald Woods, Vic Tayback, and Cay Forrester, who wrote the screenplay and whose husband, Ludlow Flower, produced. Cash performed the film's title song, with a guitar solo by Merle Travis, who also appears in the film as Max. Plot Fred sits in a dark room, detailing his most recent bank robbery and talking about how he teamed with hardened criminal Johnny Cabot to execute his plan. Cabot plans to take Nancy Wilson, wife of the bank's vice president Ken Wilson, as a hostage. He intends to hold her until Fred calls confirming that they have the ransom money. Cabot watches the Wilson house as Ken leaves for work and their son Bobby heads off to school. Posing as a door-to-door guitar instr ...
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I Am A Pilgrim
"I Am a Pilgrim" is a traditional Christian hymn from the United States, first documented in the mid-19th century. It forms part of the repertoire of gospel, folk, and bluegrass artists. The song combines elements from an " d hymn entwined with Poor Wayfaring Stranger (Sacred Harp - 1844). It appears in The Southern Zion's Songster (1864) and in Hymns For the Camp (1862)." The song references or alludes to several Bible passages, including the refrain, "I am a pilgrim and a stranger" which alludes to 1 Peter 2:11 and Hebrews 11:13 and also the lyric "If I could touch the hem of his garment" which references Matthew 9:20 where a woman touches the hem of Jesus' robe and is healed.Steve Turner, ''Turn, Turn, Turn: Popular Songs Inspired by the Bible,'' (2018) (accessed on books.google.com) In July 1924 the song was first recorded by Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, an African American group. Prominent musicians such as Bill Monroe, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, and Merle Travis Merle Robert ...
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Ike Everly
The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close-harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock. Don and Phil Everly were raised in a musical family. As children in the 1940s, they appeared on radio in Iowa, singing with their parents as the Everly Family. During their high-school years in Knoxville, they performed on radio and television. The brothers gained the attention of Chet Atkins, who began to promote them. They began writing and recording their own music in 1956. The brothers' first hit song was " Bye Bye Love", which hit number one in the spring of 1957. Additional hits, including " Wake Up Little Susie", " All I Have to Do Is Dream", and " Problems", followed in 1958. In 1960, they signed with Warner Bros. Records and recorded " Cathy's Clown", which was their biggest-selling sing ...
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Mose Rager
Moses Rager (April 2, 1911 – May 14, 1986) was a guitar player from Kentucky. He is credited with creating the thumb-picking style of guitar playing - which he taught to Merle Travis Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, his songs' lyrics were often about the lives and the economic exploitation of Ameri .... Laverda Rager was the wife of Mose Rager. She was interviewed by musicologist Erika Brady in 2000. References External links Darrel McClellan's Mose Rager Page 1911 births 1986 deaths Guitarists from Kentucky 20th-century American guitarists {{Kentucky-stub ...
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Kennedy Jones (musician)
Kennedy Jones or Jonesey (1 August 1900 – 6 September 1990) was an American guitarist and music writer. He was born on a farm in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. He received his inspiration from his mother Alice who played several instruments. He married Irene Hicks, a pianist, and they performed together early in his career. He claimed to be the first guitarist to play using a thumbpick - at a square dance in 1918. Previously thumbpicks had been used only for the banjo or Hawaiian guitar. He also played the fiddle and declined to join Merle Travis's band ''The Drifting Pioneers.'' Jones composed the thumbpickers anthem "Cannonball Rag," but when Travis recorded the tune in the 1940s, the latter received the credit. In 1939 Jones moved to Chicago. He played in several bands, one which included his sons, Donald and Kennedy Jr. His daughter Farre Lee too was an accomplished guitarist/singer, who regularly performed on radio station WLW. In the 1950s Jones moved to Cincinnati ...
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Arnold Shultz
Arnold Shultz (1886 – 1931) was an American fiddler and guitarist who is noted as a major influence in the development of the "thumb-style," or " Travis picking" method of playing guitar. Biography Shultz, the son of a former slave, was born into a family of touring musicians in Ohio County, Kentucky, in 1886.Cantwell, 31. The community he grew up around was musically active. Ella Griffin, his cousin, says "He learned usicat home. He just picked it up himself, It just runs in the family." In 1900, Shultz began studying guitar under his uncle, developing a jazzy "thumb-style" method of playing guitar that eventually evolved into the Kentucky style for which such musicians as Chet Atkins, Doc Watson and Merle Travis would be known. Professionally, Shultz was a laborer, traveling from Kentucky through Mississippi and New Orleans, working with coal or as a deck hand. In the early 1920s, he played fiddle in the otherwise white hillbilly and Dixieland band of Forest "Boots" Faugh ...
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Fingerpicking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectrum, commonly called a "pick"). The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" are also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios (the notes of a chord played one after the other, as oppose ...
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John Prine
John Edward Prine (; October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine was known for his signature blend of humorous lyrics about love, life, and current events, often with elements of social commentary and satire, as well as sweet songs and melancholy ballads. He was active as a composer, recording artist, live performer, and occasional actor from the early 1970s until his death. Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at age 14. He attended classes at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. After serving in West Germany with the U.S. Army, he returned to Chicago in the late 1960s, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs first as a hobby. Continuing studies at the Old Town School, he performed at a student hang-out, the nearby Fifth Peg. A laudatory review by Roger Ebert put Prine on the map. Singer- ...
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Country Music Hall Of Fame
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amassed one of the world's most extensive musical collections. History of the museum The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the world's largest repository of country music artifacts. Early in the 1960s, as the Country Music Association's (CMA) campaign to publicize country music was accelerating, CMA leaders determined that a new organization was needed to operate a country music museum and related activities beyond CMA's scope as simply a trade organization. Toward this end, the nonprofit Country Music Foundation (CMF) was chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964 to collect, preserve, and publicize information and artifacts relating to the history of country music. Through CMF, industry leaders raised money with the effort of CMA Exec ...
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Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1970 by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with the music community in the city of Nashville. The Foundation's stated purpose is to educate, archive, and celebrate the contributions of the members of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame to the world of music. The Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc., is governed by a board of directors, currently consisting of thirteen members. Annually, three songwriters are inducted into the Hall of Fame. Inductees 1970s ;1970 *Gene Autry * Johnny Bond * Albert E. Brumley * A.P. Carter * Ted Daffan * Vernon Dalhart * Rex Griffin * Stuart Hamblen * Pee Wee King * Vic McAlpin * Bob Miller * Leon Payne * Jimmie Rodgers * Fred Rose * Redd Stewart * Floyd Tillman * Merle Travis * Ernest Tubb * Cindy Walker * ...
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Ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott (composer), James Scott, and Joseph Lamb (composer), Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. Ragtime music originated within African Americans, African American communities in the late 19th century and became a distinctly American form of popular music. It is closely related to American march music, marches. Ragtime pieces usually contain several distinct themes, often arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Scott Joplin, known as the "King of Ragtime", gained fame through compositions like "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer (rag), The Entertainer". Ragtime influ ...
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Pattern Picking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectrum, commonly called a "pick"). The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" are also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios (the notes of a chord played one after the other, as opposed ...
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