Lester "Junior" Barnard is not only one of my favorite obscure guitarists, he's one of my favorite guitarists, period. Junior played with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, notably on a classic series of radio transcriptions that have come to be known as the
"Tiffany Transcriptions." The Tiffany recordings were among the best work Wills ever did. Possibly because there were no record company weasels around to kill the mood, Wills and his band recorded in a looser, more raucous vein than most of his other studio dates. They rerecorded many Wills standards, along with the usual eclectic mix of pop, folk, blues, swing, and fiddle/dance material; these sides, bursting with great improvised solos and Wills humor, have the flavor of sitting on the floor at a private party.
Wills had many fine soloists in his western swing bands over the years, but even in that august company of redneck jazzmen Junior stands out. Blues had always been an influence on country music, since long before it was called "country," but Junior was one of the first country players to embrace the trashy distorted approach to blues.
www.karlstraubmusic.com/girl i left behind me junior solo.mp3
Some of the more rough-hewn r&b and blues players were cranking up their amps for a dirty sound in the 1940s, but this was still a pretty new phenomenon and Junior must have really sounded weird to the country audience. Along with the dirty blues sound, Junior had a strong sense of swing. The thing that makes him important to me as an influence is that he combined the trashy side of blues with articulation and timing that are jazz and country at the same time. He may be the first player that mixed the idioms up in quite that way-- although I don't know if Chuck Berry ever heard Junior play, there are some moments in Junior's work (especially on "Barnard Blues" ) that come pretty close to rock and roll. Berry was reportedly influenced by a Wills recording of "Ida Red;" I'm just not sure if he heard a version with Junior. You can hear the connection on Chuck's first single "Maybelline." Supposedly a lot of people, including some rockabilly musicians, heard this single on the radio and assumed Chuck was a redneck.
TIPS ON PLAYING THE TRANSCRIPTION
first two bars are seventh position, with one grace note slide from the sixth fret. (for discussion on position playing/fingering, see the post about perpetual motion etudes. ) 3rd bar is 8th position, with one tricky alternate fingering-- with index waiting to play B8, middle finger plays D8 and ring finger hammers D9. then shift into normal 8th position fingering. 4th bar is 10th position at first, try to use pinky for B12 and ring for G12, then reach back to G9 with index. slide on G string with middle finger to 11th fret-- you're now briefly in 10th position again. 5th bar slides with pinky to 15th fret-- dig into this note. Junior is playing out of a G shape at this point-- the 6th bar is Chuck Berry/B.B. King territory, sort of a bluesy but sweet sound-- major pentatonic, except that like blues players, Junior bends the B note slightly flat.
7th bar-- a bend and release, or "unbend" as like to call it. ( this in the middle of an otherwise Charlie Christian-type line!)
8th bar-- quarter notes. many novice players see a bar like that, especially when it's in the middle of a bunch of more complicated stuff, and tend to play it lazily. in fact, quarter notes can and should swing and they should definitely be played with gusto. (see the work of Thelonious Monk for more of this. ) Dig into those quarter notes-- Junior did. the two notes in the 9th bar were played with such energy that we can overlook the fact that the last note, a G sharp, was probably a wrong note. (I'd speculate that he was going for an A, the ninth of the chord. )
the second half of the solo features a Junior trademark-- double stops. (here's where you hear more Chuck Berry-esque sounds, and Merle Haggard has borrowed these licks from Junior). fingering is crucial with double stops. any time you have two adjacent strings with notes on the same fret, use your index finger as a mini-barre-- as in the first double stop, a major third interval. the next double stop, a minor third on the G and G strings, is middle and ring fingers. all of this should be played aggressively, once you have the fingering down. the next double stop, a minor third on the G and D strings, is played with index and ring.
the fingering from there should be more of the same. TIP ON ARTICULATION-- Junior digs in, often using a staccato approach that marks him as a country player. This generalization is too oversimplifying, but Junior digs in with a trashy amp sound (blues), swings(jazz), and uses staccato(country). when all of these elements are in place, he is literally in all three idioms at once, playing what Tommy Duncan calls "coal-mine choruses" in an often-quoted aside from the Tiffanys.
unfortunately, it's become very difficult and expensive to buy some of these Tiffany Transcription albums. (as far as I know, there are 10 volumes. ) I hope they come back in print, but in the meantime my friend Charlie McNamara says they are available on itunes.
(NOTE-- SINCE I WROTE THIS, THEY HAVE BECOME AVAILABLE AS A BOX SET ALSO.)
(MORE)
Posts
