To talk of a bottleneck/slide guitar style as if it were a single, specific musical example of one method and style of playing guitar is clearly invalid. It is less a style of playing than a series of possible playing options open to the guitarist and, as with other traits of guitar playing, is as open to characteristics of regional distinctiveness as other modes of playing guitar.– Bruce Bastin

For more than a century, blues guitarists have been pressing bottlenecks, bones, and metal to strings to create exhilarating melodies, propulsive chords and, in their best moments, feelings too deep for words. This collection gathers transcriptions of 27 groundbreaking bottleneck guitar gems from the 1920s through the 1960s.

The artist/songs featured in this book and audio collection: Bo Weavil Jackson You Can’t Keep No Brown Sam Collins The Jail House Blues Furry Lewis Falling Down Blues Peg Leg Howell Skin Game Blues Blind Willie Johnson Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning Charley Patton Banty Rooster Blues, When Your Way Gets Dark, A Spoonful Blues Barbecue Bob Yo Yo Blues Blind Willie McTell Love Changing Blues Kokomo Arnold Rainy Night Blues Son House My Black Mama, Part 1, Preachin’ the Blues, Part 1, Mississippi County Farm Blues Tampa Red Things ’Bout Coming My Way, Black Angel Blues, Boogie Woogie Dance Lead Belly C.C. Rider Robert Johnson Come On In My Kitchen B.K. Turner Black Ace Bukka White Bukka’s Jitterbug Swing, Fixin’ to Die Blues Muddy Waters I Can’t Be Satisfied Fred McDowell Write Me a Few Lines, 61 Highway, Jesus Is on the Mainline

Level 2/3 • 192 pages • Direct download link to audio files