Editing Slide guitar (section)

== History ==
{{listen
| filename = Traveling Riverside Blues sample.ogg
| type = music
| title = "Traveling Riverside Blues"
| description = First 29 seconds of [[Robert Johnson]]'s "Traveling Riverside Blues"
}}
The technique of using a hard object against a plucked string goes back to the [[diddley bow]] derived from a one-stringed African instrument. The diddley bow is believed to be one of the ancestors of the bottleneck style.{{sfn|Tracy|Evans|1999|p=65}} When sailors from Europe introduced the [[Classical guitar|Spanish guitar]] to Hawaii in the latter nineteenth century, the Hawaiians slackened some of the strings from the standard [[Guitar tunings|guitar tuning]] to make a [[guitar chord|chord]]{{snd}}this became known as [[Slack-key guitar|"slack-key" guitar]], today referred to as an [[open tuning]].<ref name="premier-ross">{{cite web|last1=Ross|first1=Michael|title=Pedal to the Metal: A Short History of the Pedal Steel Guitar|url=https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/22152-pedal-to-the-metal-a-short-history-of-the-pedal-steel-guitar|website=[[Premier Guitar|premierguitar]].com|access-date=October 5, 2017|date=February 17, 2015}}</ref> With the "slack-key" the Hawaiians found it easy to play a three-chord song by moving a piece of metal along the [[fingerboard|fretboard]] and began to play the instrument across the lap. Near the end of the nineteenth century, a Hawaiian named [[Joseph Kekuku]] became proficient in playing this way using a steel bar against the guitar strings. The bar was called the "steel" and was the source of the name "steel guitar". Kekuku popularized the method and some sources claim he originated the technique.<ref name="ruymar">{{cite web|last1=Ruymar|first1=Lorene|title=The History of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar|url=http://www.hsga.org/history.htm#|website=hgsa.com|publisher=Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association|access-date=October 12, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180316204058/http://www.hsga.org/history.htm|archive-date=March 16, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>  In the first half of the twentieth century, this so-called "Hawaiian guitar" style of playing spread to the US.{{sfn|Ruymar|1996|p=48}} [[Sol Hoʻopiʻi]] was an influential Hawaiian guitarist who in 1919, at age 17, came to the US mainland from Hawaii as a stow-away on a ship heading for San Francisco. Hoʻopiʻi's playing became popular in the late 1920s and he recorded songs like "Hula Blues" and "Farewell Blues". According to  author Pete Madsen, "[Hoʻopiʻi's playing] would influence a legion of players from rural Mississippi."{{sfn|Masden|2005|p=6}}

Most players of blues slide guitar were from the southern US, particularly the [[Mississippi Delta]], and their music was likely from an African origin handed down to African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the fields.<ref name="history-blues">{{cite web|last1=Kopp|first1=Ed|title=A Brief History of the Blues|url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/a-brief-history-of-the-blues-by-ed-kopp.php|website=[[allaboutjazz.com]]|access-date=October 19, 2017|date=August 16, 2005}}</ref> The earliest [[Delta blues]] musicians were largely solo  singer-guitarists.<ref name="morrison-delta">{{cite web|last1=Morrison|first1=Nick|title=Mississippi Delta Blues: American Cornerstone|url=https://www.npr.org/2011/05/05/106364432/mississippi-delta-blues-american-cornerstone|website=[[npr.org]]|access-date=October 30, 2017|date=July 13, 2009}}</ref>  [[W. C. Handy]] commented on the first time he heard slide guitar in 1903, when a blues player performed in a local train station: "As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularised by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable."<ref name="handy-encounter">{{cite web|title=W.C. Handy Encounters the Blues|url=http://msbluestrail.org/blues-trail-markers/w-c-handy|website=[[Mississippi Blues Trail|msbluestrail]].org|access-date=October 10, 2017}}</ref>
Blues historian Gérard Herzhaft notes that [[Tampa Red]] was one of the first black musicians inspired by the Hawaiian guitarists of the beginning of the century, and he managed to adapt their sound to the blues.{{sfn|Herzhaft|1992|p=334}} Tampa Red, as well as [[Kokomo Arnold]], [[Casey Bill Weldon]], and Oscar Woods adopted the Hawaiian mode of playing longer [[melody|melodies]] with the slide instead of playing short [[riff]]s as they had done previously.{{sfn|Moore|2003|loc=eBook}}

In the early 20th century, steel guitar playing was divided into two streams: bottleneck-style, performed on a traditional Spanish guitar held flat against the body; and lap-style, performed on an instrument specifically designed or modified for the purpose of being played on the performer's lap.{{sfn|Volk|2003|p=9}} The bottleneck-style was typically associated with blues music and was popularized by African-American blues artists.{{sfn|Volk|2003|p=9}} The Mississippi Delta was the home of [[Robert Johnson]], [[Son House]], [[Charlie Patton]], and other blues pioneers who prominently used the slide.{{sfn|Sokolow|1996|p=3}}{{sfn|Erlewine|1996|p=372}} The first known recording of the bottleneck style was in 1923 by [[Sylvester Weaver (musician)|Sylvester Weaver]] who recorded two instrumentals, "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag".{{sfn|Russell|1997|p=12}}{{sfn|Fetherhoff|2014|loc=eBook}}{{efn|Sylvester Weaver's 1923 "Guitar Rag" was adapted by [[Western swing]] pioneers [[Bob Wills]] and [[Leon McAuliffe]] in 1935 for the influential instrumental "[[Steel Guitar Rag]]".{{sfn|Mann|1979|loc=eBook}}}}  Guitarist and author [[Woody Mann]] identifies Tampa Red and [[Blind Willie Johnson]] as "developing the most distinctive styles in the recorded idom" of the time.{{sfn|Mann|1979|loc=eBook}} He adds:
{{blockquote|Johnson was the first such player to achieve a real balance between treble and bass melodic lines, which acted as complementary voices in his arrangements of Baptist spirituals{{nbsp}}... Tampa Red's [playing was] innovative for the late 1920s{{nbsp}}... Thanks to his distinctive approach and suave sound, the Chicago-based Red became the most influential bottleneck player of the blues age, his smooth-sound work echoing in the playing of [[Blind Boy Fuller]], Robert Nighthawk, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters.{{sfn|Mann|1979|loc=eBook}}}}