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http://pickingjjcale.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/jjs-song-and-guitar-style-in-general.html
My favourite.
Thanks for that - i hadn't heard of him before....it brought a smile to my face :-)
...and with the addition of slide and finger-picks (thumb and index).
Magic !
R.L. Burnside also played with just thumb and index finger (learned from McDowell), so I guess it could be considered a "school" of fingerstyle...
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Didn't think Fred McDowell would be named here. Those videos of his are some of the finest guitar tones I have come across.
One of my all times favourites.
I'm about to release a book on Country Fingerstyle guitar in a couple of weeks actually!
I always say that Jerry Reed is one of my all time favourite players, but in terms of jaw dropping playing I always have to name check Buster B Jones!
Outside of the country tinged stuff, I LOVE Blind Blake, that ragtime stuff is so cool!
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I came across a recently discovered picture of Son House as a young man, he was a dude!
The thumb+finger thing is common with blues guys, here's a good 'un, Magic Sam on borrowed guitar -
And Freddie. With awesome jacket
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
It's quite distinct from the players who played more standard alternating thumb base style with just their thumb and index (including Mississippi John Hurt, Gary Davis, Doc Watson and of course Merle Travis) because with them the index is mainly just playing upstrokes. In this approach, the index is doing lots of different things. It always blows me away how complex it can sound (and it pisses me right off that we're supposed to think of these players as "basic" or somehow unsophisticated musicians...)
FWIW, the last sentence is the one I agree with the most. I don't have anything more to add than what you already said. In addition to the upstrokes with the index finger there is the very idiosyncratic use of syncopation, a very characteristic aspect of ragtime. I think it's actually a pretty difficult thing to learn how to play.
An artist named above and one of his most famous songs is a wonderful example of syncopation found in ragtime
blind blake, mcdowell and travis