Level: 2/3
Tuning: Open D

"Steel Guitar Rag" is based on Sylvester Weaver's "Guitar Rag", recorded in 1927. Weaver was - until someone finds another earlier - the first man to have recorded slide. This tune along with his "Guitar Blues" laid down at the same time, was one of the first blues instrumentals to be recorded. His slide-guitar technique, using a knife blade on the strings, was much imitated by players who heard his records and in the 1930s, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys made their adaptation of Sylvester's tune, re-born as "Steel Guitar Rag", into a country standard.

John's version is played in an Open D Tuning (D A D F# A D) and has many echoes of Sylvester Weaver's recording. John recorded this on "The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites".