The diddley bow is a string instrument of African origin made popular in America, probably developed from instruments found on the Ghana coast of west Africa. The diddley bow is rarely heard outside the rural south. Other nicknames for this instrument include “jitterbug” or “one-string,” while an ethnomusicologist would formally call it a “monochord zither.”

Construction

The diddley bow is typically homemade, consisting usually of a wooden board and a single wire string stretched between two screws, and played by plucking while varying the pitch with a metal or glass slide held in the other hand. A glass bottle is usually used as the bridge, which helps magnify the sound. The diddley bow has traditionally been considered an "entry-level" instrument, normally played by adolescent boys, who then graduate to a "normal" guitar if they show promise on the diddley bow. Detailed instructions for building a diddley bow can be found at www.onestringwillie.com.

The diddley bow is significant to blues music in that many blues guitarists got their start playing it as children, as well as the fact that, like the slide guitar, it is played with a slide. However, because it was considered a children's instrument, very few musicians continued to play the diddley bow once they reached adulthood. The diddley bow is therefore not well represented in recordings.

Notable users

One notable performer of the instrument was the Mississippi blues musician Lonnie Pitchford, who used to demonstrate the instrument by stretching a wire between two nails hammered into the wood of a vertical beam making up part of the front porch of his home. Pitchford's headstone, placed on his grave in 2000 by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund, is actually designed with a playable diddley bow on the side as requested by Pitchford's family. Also some famous guitarists in the Motown band "The Funk Brothers" learned to play on the diddley bow and went on to play on some of Motown's greatest hits.

Other notable traditional players include Lewis Dotson, Glen Faulkner, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Compton Jones, Eddie "One String" Jones, Napoleon Strickland, Moses Williams, and "One String Sam" Wilson. Willie Joe Duncan was also notable for his work with a very large electrified diddley bow he called a Unitar.

Recent performers who use similar instruments include New York City-based jazz pianist Cooper-Moore, American bluesman Seasick Steve, Danny Kroha, One String Willie, and blind musician Velcro Lewis. Jack White makes one at the beginning of the movie It Might Get Loud, then after playing it quips "Who says you need to buy a guitar?". Seasick Steve recorded a tribute song to his diddley bow on his song "Diddley Bo" from his 2009 album, Man From Another Time.

Filmography

American Patchwork: Songs and Stories of America, part 3: "The Land Where the Blues Began" (1990). Written, directed, and produced by Alan Lomax; developed by the Association for Cultural Equity at Columbia University and Hunter College. North Carolina Public TV; A Dibb Direction production for Channel Four.

Discography

Louis Dotson "Sitting On Top Of The World" on Bothered All The Time, Southern Culture SC 1703

Willie Joe (Duncan) and His Unitar – The killer track "Unitar Rock," is available on Teen Beat Vol 4. Ace CDCHD 655. "Twitchy" and "Cherokee Dance" are available on The Specialty Story Specialty 5SPCD-4412-2.

Glen Faulkner – "Cotton Pickin' Blues," "Louisiana Blues," "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," "Get Right Church And Lets Go Home," on The Spirit Lives On: Deep South Country Blues and Spirituals in the 1990s, Hot Fox HF-CD-005 (German CD, now out of print).

Jessie Mae Hemphill – two tracks (one accompanied By Compton Jones) on Heritage of the Blues: Shake It, Baby, HighTone HCD 8156. Two tracks (accompanied by Compton Jones and Glen Faulkner) on Get Right Blues, Inside Sounds ISC-0519.

Compton Jones – One track, "Shake 'Em On Down," on Afro-American Folk Music from Tate and Panola Counties, Mississippi, Rounder 1515 (CD). With booklet notes by diddley bow scholar David Evans.

Eddie "One String" Jones – One String Blues, Takoma Records CDTAK 1023. Nine tracks, the first one an interview of Eddie Jones where he tells how he built his instrument. This is an excellent CD of one of the true masters of diddley bow, and the booklet notes includes a drawing and some photographs of his instrument and of him playing. Note that on this CD, Eddie Jones sings and plays a version of "The Dozens," a game of musical and rhyming insults that gets pretty crude—this one track makes the CD inappropriate for young kids.

"The Oven's On" LP 2007 by Velcro Lewis and His 100 Proof Band.

"The Bronze Age" CD 2009 by the Velcro Lewis Group.

"The Almanac of Bad Luck" LP 2009 by Tijuana Hercules.

"Fall To Pieces" 45 single 2010 by the Velcro Lewis Group.

Lonnie Pitchford – Pitchford was another diddley bow master. He can be heard on four tracks on National Downhome Blues Festival Volume One Southland SCD-21, "Train Coming Around the Bend," "My Babe," "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "One-String Boogie." Two tracks on All Around Man Rooster R2629 "Real Rock Music: Crawlin' Kingsnake" and "My Babe." One track on Living Country Blues, Evidence ECD 26105-2 ("Boogie Chillen"). Also, another "One-String Boogie," and "My Baby Walked Away" on American Folk Blues Festival '83; "Johnny Stole An Apple," Living Country Blues USA - Volume 7: Afro-American Blues Roots; "My Baby Walked Away" on Living Country Blues USA - Volume 9: Mississippi Moan and (yet another) "One String Boogie" on Living Country Blues USA - Volume10: Country Boogie

Napoleon Strickland – One track, "Key to the Blues," on Bottleneck Blues, Testament 5021 (CD). (This same cut also appears on the CD Africa and the Blues).

One String Willie - 7 tracks on CD "A Store-Bought Guitar Just Won't Do," 10 tracks on CD "You Gotta Hit the String Right to Make the Music Swing"

Moses Williams – four tracks on a double-LP anthology of Florida blues produced by the Florida Folklife Program. (Drop on Down In Florida, Florida Folklife LP 102-103). This LP is long out of print, but a free CD Music from the Florida Folklife Collection from the Florida Folklife Program presents a killer cut of Williams playing and singing "Which Way Did My Baby Go?"

"One String Sam" (Wilson) –Two cuts ("I Need $100" and "I Got to Go") from the 1973 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival on Please Mr. Foreman: Motor City Blues, Schoolkids' Records SKR2101-2. Two tracks on Rural Blues Vol 1 (1934-1956), Document Records B000000J8B ("I Need $100" (studio version) and "My Baby Ooh").

"White Magick Summer" LP 2010 by the Velcro Lewis Group.

References

Similar instruments

Musical bow

Đàn bầu

Duxianqin

Cigar box guitar

Category:Continuous pitch instruments Category:Musical bows Category:Monochords Category:American musical instruments

Name	Seasick Steve
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Steven Gene Wold
Origin	Oakland, California
Genre	blues, country, boogie, American folk
Occupation	musician, songwriter
Instrument	vocals, guitars, diddley bow, stomp box, banjo
Label	Atlantic Records, Warner Bros. Records, Bronzerat Records, Dead Skunk Records
Associated acts	The Level Devils, Modest Mouse
Url	Official Website
Notable instruments	Three-String Trance Wonder

Steven Gene Wold, commonly known as Seasick Steve, (born 1941) is an American blues musician. He plays (mostly personalized) guitars, and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work.

Life and career

Childhood and early life

Wold was born in Oakland, California. When he was four years old, his parents split up. His father played boogie-woogie piano and at five or six years old, Wold tried to learn but couldn't. At age eight, he learned to play the guitar (he later found out that it was blues) from K. C. Douglas, who worked at his grandfather's garage. Douglas wrote the song "Mercury Blues" and used to play with Tommy Johnson. Wold left home at 13 to avoid abuse at the hands of his stepfather, and lived rough and on the road in Tennessee, Mississippi and elsewhere, until 1973. He would travel long distances by hopping freight trains, looking for work as a farm labourer or in other seasonal jobs, often living as a hobo. At various times, Wold worked as a carnie, cowboy and a migrant worker.

Of this time he once said:

Adult life and early musical career

In the sixties he started touring and performing with fellow blues musicians, and had friends in the music scene including Janis Joplin In the 1990s he continued to work as a recording engineer and producer, including producing several releases by Modest Mouse. including their 1996 debut album This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About.

At one time, living in Paris, Wold made his living busking, mostly on the metro. and Roskilde in Denmark.

Wold's major-label debut, I Started Out With Nothin and i Still Got Most of it Left was recorded with Dan Magnusson on drums, was released by Warner Music on 29 September 2008 and features Ruby Turner and Nick Cave's Grinderman.

He has toured the UK extensively since 2007 being supported by Duke Garwood, Gemma Ray, The Sugars, Billie the Vision and the Dancers in January 2008, Amy LaVere in October 2008 ( Melody Nelson at the Brighton Dome on 7 October) and Joe Gideon & The Shark in January 2009. His tours in October 2008 and January 2009 were all sold out and included performances at the Royal Albert Hall, The Edinburgh Queens Hall, the Grand Opera House in Belfast, the Apollo in Manchester, the City Hall in Newcastle and the London Hammersmith Apollo. festival in London's Hyde Park]]

In 2009, Wold was nominated for a Brit Award in the category of International Solo Male Artist, That same year, BBC Four broadcast a documentary of Wold visiting the southern USA entitled Seasick Steve: Bringing It All Back Home. On 21 January, Wold hosted "Folk America: Hollerers, Stompers and Old Time Ramblers" at the Barbican in London, a show that was also televised and shown with the documentary on BBC Four as part of a series tracing American roots music.

Seasick Steve participated on Australian television show Spicks and Specks in April 2009, wearing a beaten up John Deere cap. Wold admitted to having enough money to finally buy a model 60 John Deere Tractor, and joked that he could now really hold up traffic, a reference to the joke of his 51 Chevy breaking down at a music festival and requiring a push from members of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

In an interview with an Australian magazine, Seasick Steve attributes much of his unlikely success to his cheap and weather-beaten guitar, 'The Trance Wonder' and reveals the guitar’s mojo might come from supernatural sources. “I got it from Sherman, who is a friend of mine down in Mississippi, who had bought it down at a goodwill store. When we were down there last time he says to me, ‘I didn’t tell you when you bought it off me, but that guitar used to be haunted’. I say, ‘What are you talking about, Sherman?’. He says, ‘There’s 50 solid citizens here in Como who’ll tell you this guitar is haunted. It’s the darnedest thing – we’d leave it over in the potato barn and we’d come back in and it would be moved. You’d put it down somewhere and the next morning you’d come back and it would have moved. When you took that guitar the ghost in the barn left’. He told me this not very long ago and I said to him, ‘Sherman! Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ and he said, ‘Well the ghost was gone – I didn’t want it around here no more!’”

On 3 January 2010, Seasick Steve appeared on the popular BBC motoring show Top Gear as the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car. He was the last star to drive in the blue Chevrolet Lacetti.

In February 2010, Seasick Steve was nominated for a Brit Award in the category of International Solo Male Artist for the second consecutive year.

In 2010, Seasick Steve made numerous festival appearances throughout the summer, including the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival, the main stage at V Festival and many more.

Musical equipment

Wold owns (and plays) several obscure and personalised instruments, including: The Three-String Trance Wonder - This is a normal guitar that resembles a Fender Coronado or a Teisco EP-7, but with only three strings. It has an old Harmony pickup added (with duct tape) and is tuned to G, G and B using an E string in the A position, a D in the G position and a G in the B position. At his gigs, he often tells the story that he bought it for $75 in this condition in Como, Mississippi from a man named Sherman, who later told him he only paid $25 for it the day before. Wold vowed never to add another string, and that he would tour the world telling his story of how Sherman ripped him off.

The Morris Minor Guitar - When on the TV show Top Gear, presenter Jeremy Clarkson commented that Steve's car history of over 100 cars included a Morris Minor. Steve then presented a 4-string guitar that his friend had made out of two old hub caps from the Minor joined back-to-back, playing it a little in the episode. Jeremy Clarkson replied that it was the best use of a Morris Minor he had ever seen.

Nickname

When asked about his nickname, Wold has said: "because it's just true: I always get seasick." When he was ill on a ferry in Norway, later in his life, a friend began playfully using the name and, despite Wold not rising to it for a while, it stuck. When asked about his name on British Sunday morning television show, Something for the Weekend, he replied, "I get sick on boats, that's it!"

Personal life

Wold married his second wife, Elisabeth, in 1982 and together they have three grown-up sons. Wold has problems putting down roots in one place, and he and his wife have lived in 59 houses to date. They currently live in Norway and the UK. His youngest son, Paul Martin Wold, played drums on Dog House Music and first made a guest appearance with him on percussion/drums at the Astoria in January, 2008 and has since performed with Seasick Steve frequently, playing washboard, shakers, tambourine, floor tom and occasionally guitar. He also works as Steve's guitar-tech. Paul Martin Wold, aka Wishful Thinking will be releasing his debut album 'A Waste of Time Well Spent' on November 2, 2009 and will showcase a selection from the album whilst touring the UK with Seasick Steve.

Discography

Studio albums

{| class="wikitable" |- ! style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|Year ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Title ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Label ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|UK Album Chart ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|UK Independent Album Chart |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2004 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Cheap | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Dead Skunk Records | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|198 ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|8 |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2006 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Dog House Music | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Bronzerat Records | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|37 ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|2 |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2008 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Warner Bros. Records/Bronzerat Records | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| 9 ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2009 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Man from Another Time | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Atlantic Records, Rykodisc | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| 4 ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2010 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|...Songs For Elisabeth | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Atlantic Records, Rykodisc | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| 33 ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| |}

EPs

{| class="wikitable" |- ! style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|Year ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Title ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Other information ! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Label |- | style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; width:40px;"|2008 | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|It's All Good | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"| | style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Bronzerat Records |}

Singles

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" !rowspan="2"| Year !rowspan="2" width="210"| Single !colspan="3"| Peak chart positions !rowspan="2"| Album |- ! UK ! UK Indep. ! US |- | 2007 |align="left"| "Dog House Boogie" | 187 | — | — |align="left" rowspan="2"| Dog House Music |- |rowspan="3"| 2008 |align="left"| "Cut My Wings" | 151 | — | — |- |align="left"| "It's All Good" | — | 5 | — |align="left"| non-album single |- |align="left"| "St. Louis Slim" | — | — | — |align="left" rowspan="2"| I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left |- |rowspan="2"| 2009 |align="left"| "Walkin' Man" | — | — | — |- |align="left"| "That's All" | — | — | — |align="left"| Man from Another Time |}

References

External links

Official website

Official MySpace

Official Facebook

Seasick Steve interview at musicOMH

Seasick Steve interview at Blues In London

Hobo-Low: Seasick Steve Appreciation Forum

Record Label - Bronzerat recordings

Category:American blues guitarists Category:American buskers Category:American blues musicians Category:Slide guitarists Category:Living people Category:American expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Hoboes Category:American expatriates in Norway

Name	Little Red
Background	group_or_band
Origin	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Genre	Pop, rock
Years active	2005 – present
Label	Hooch Hound/Shock, Lucky Number Music
Associated acts	The Greasers The Hondas The Cuckoos
Url	Little Red Music
Current members	Adrian Beltrame Dominic Byrne Quang Dinh Tom Hartney Taka Honda

Little Red are a rock band from Melbourne, Australia consisting of Adrian Beltrame (guitar, vocals), Dominic Byrne (guitar, vocals), Quang Dinh (bass, vocals), Tom Hartney (vocals, keyboards, tambourine and harmonica) and Taka Honda (drums). The band's music has been described as similar to that of The Beach Boys, in that it is old-fashioned rock and roll with all members except the drummer contributing to both lead singing and harmonies.

Biography

The band was formed in 2005 and were featured on Triple J Unearthed. The band won the 2008 Australia-wide 'Garage to V' competition held by Virgin Mobile to win a slot at all shows of the Australian V Festival in 2008, while the band has also performed at the Falls Festival, Meredith Music Festival, the Big Day Out, the Pyramid Rock Festival and the Laneway Festival.

Little Red's songs "Waiting", "Coca-Cola" and "Witch Doctor" have all received regular play on Australian nation-wide radio station Triple J, while "Coca-Cola" was also included on the official soundtrack of Australian TV series Underbelly, and was voted #47 on the 2008 Triple J Hottest 100.

The band independently released in Australia an album entitled Listen to Little Red on 28 June, 2008, which debuted at number 29 on the ARIA Charts. The album was licensed for release outside of Australia by the UK independent Lucky Number Music and was released on November 16, 2009 in the UK and early 2010 internationally.

In September, 2010, the band released a second album, Midnight Remember, featuring their latest single, "Rock It" which gained a gold accreditation.

Touring

Toured with Blondie and The Pretenders, Evening On The Green 2010

Big Day Out 2011

Splendor in the Grass July/August 2010

Toured with Kasabian in July 2010

Headline tour of Australia supported by Ground Components in April/May 2009

Headline tour of Australia - University Tour - in October 2008

Toured with Vampire Weekend on their national Australian tour in August 2008

Headline tour of Australia - album tour - in August/September 2008 supported by The Holidays and Andy Bull

Toured with The Panics on their national album tour in May 2008

Toured with Spoon in January 2008

Toured with Operator Please on their national Australian tour in April 2008

Toured with Art of Fighting in September 2007

Discography

Albums

Listen to Little Red — Hooch Hound/Shock (28 June 2008) AUS #29 — Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

Midnight Remember — Liberation (September 2010) AUS #5

;Midnight Remember tracklisting # "Get A Life" # "Slow Motion" # "Forget About Your Man" # "Rock It" # "All Mine" # "I Can't Wait" # "Place Called Love" # "Lazy Boy" # "Little Bit Of Something" # "In My Bed" # "Follow You There" # "Going Wrong" # "Chelsworth"

EPs

Get Ready! EP

;Get Ready! EP tracklisting #"Waiting" #"Anytime" #"Coca-Cola" #"I Want You Back" #"Cry Cry" (demo)

Singles

"Coca Cola"/"It's Alright" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Waiting"/"Wait Is Over" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Rock It" (2010) AUS #19

"Slow Motion" (2010)

References

External links

Little Red video interview @ VFestival

Category:Australian rock music groups Category:Victoria (Australia) musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 2005

Name	Jack Daniel
Birth name	Jasper Newton Daniel
Birth date	September 05, 1846 | birth_place = Lynchburg, Tennessee, United States
Death date
Death place	Lynchburg, Tennessee, United States
Occupation	Distiller/Businessman
Years active	1862–1911
Known for	Jack Daniel's
Ethnicity	American
Website	Official Jack Daniel's website

Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel (September 5, 1846 – October 10, 1911) was an American distiller and the founder of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey distillery.

Biography

Daniel was one of thirteen children born to Calaway and Lucinda (née Cook) Daniel. Jack Daniel's paternal grandparents immigrated to America in the late 18th century. His grandfather Joseph “Job” Daniel was born in Wales, while his grandmother, Elizabeth Calaway, was born in Scotland. He was of Welsh, English, Scots-Irish and Scottish descent.

He was born in September, although seemingly no one knows the exact date. If the 1850 date is correct, then there is a contradiction with his mother's year of death (1847) and he may have become a licensed distiller at the age of 16, as the distillery claims a founding date of 1866. Other records list his birthdate as September 5, 1846, and in his 2004 biography Blood & Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel author Peter Krass maintains that land and deed records show the distillery was actually not founded until 1875.

Since Daniel never married and did not have any children, he took his favorite nephew, Lem Motlow, under his wing. Motlow had a head for numbers and was soon doing all the distillery's bookkeeping. In 1907, due to failing health, Daniel gave the distillery to his nephew.

Daniel died from blood poisoning at Lynchburg in 1911. The infection allegedly set up originally in a toe, which Daniel injured in kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open early one morning at work — he had always had trouble remembering the combination. His last words were "One last drink, please". This incident was the subject of a marketing poster used on the London Underground in January 2006, with the line "Moral: Never go to work early." A common joke that is told during the tour of the distillery is that all Jack had to do to cure his infection was to dip his toe in a glass of his own whiskey to clean it. His death was portrayed on Spike's 1000 Ways To Die.

References

External links

History of Jack Daniel

Category:American businesspeople Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:1850 births Category:1911 deaths Category:Infectious disease deaths in Tennessee Category:Deaths from sepsis Category:People from Moore County, Tennessee