The Bottleneck Slide

             One of the central features of African music that was integrated into the blues (and subsequently into later styles) was the call-and-response vocal format. However, because most Delta bluesmen performed by themselves, they responded to their own vocals with their guitars. In order to achieve a more voice-like sound, blues guitarists used various objects to make their instruments “talk,” such as knives, pill bottles, or the necks of glass bottles. W.C. Handy famously encountered a “black man in ragged clothes” in a train station who used a knife to make his guitar melodies slide and bend in a way that mimicked his voice; Handy was influential in bringing the slide technique to a wider audience and into the realm of popular music. [1]

             Muddy Waters, on a field recording by Alan Lomax from the Stovall plantation, demonstrated this slide technique, which was a prominent feature of the early blues style. Slide guitar remained a staple of the blues throughout its evolution, and during the blues revival it was adopted by blues and rock guitarists like Eric Clapton, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band, and, later, Derek Trucks (the nephew of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks). These and other prominent guitarists brought the slide to the forefront of rock and pop music.

      Bibliography

      [1]  Palmer, Deep Blues, 45.