Stuck Inside a Cloud

And perhaps a man brought out his guitar to the front of his tent. And he sat on a box to play, and everyone in the camp moved slowly in toward him, drawn in toward him. Many men can chord a guitar, but perhaps this man was a picker, There you have something—the deep chords beating, beating, while the melody runs on the strings like little foot-steps. Heavy hard fingers marching on the frets. The man played and the people moved slowly in on him until the circle was closed and tight, and then he sang ‘Ten-Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent Meat.’ —John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

When I was in college in the 90s I read Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” over a summer break. Many of my favorite passages in the book are from the chapters where he talks about the lives of the migrants moving west. One particular passage that stuck with me was where Steinbeck talks about men playing guitars in the camps along the highways. He writes about players who could do more than strum a chord—and could instead produce “deep chords beating while the melody runs on the strings.”

When I read this, my guitar playing was in its early stages. I felt like I could make squawks and squeals, and play handfuls of chords, but I still didn’t feel like I could play the guitar as an instrument on its own. I was bored with what I knew, and bored with most of the rock music I’d been listening to as a teenager.

A few years later I read an article about a guitarist named Merle Travis. I’d heard the name, but knew next to nothing about him. Merle Travis was born into a coal mining family in Muhlenberg County Kentucky in 1917. Travis’ primary claim to fame was that he popularized and perfected a style of playing guitar in which he strummed alternating bass patterns on the low strings, while picking melodies on the top strings. Travis did this by using a thumb pick on his right hand to play the alternating bass, and the nail on his right index finger to play the melodies. In many ways the style is quite similar to how the right and left hands of a pianist interact. To the first-time listener it sounds like two people playing together.

Travis’ music is typically labeled as country, but in reality his style also draws heavily from blues, ragtime, and tin pan alley era jazz. Travis had a long career as an instrumentalist, as well as a songwriter—among his best known compositions is “Sixteen Tons,” which was made into a hit by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

After reading about Travis I decided I had to hear his playing. I bought up all the records I could find and was mesmerized by what I heard. With the help of some music books and hours of woodshedding, I set out to study his craft and in time learned the rudiments of his style. What I was interested in more than anything was to take elements of Travis’ playing, and incorporate them into my own technique and musical aesthetic. I didn’t want in ape Travis—I wanted to rip off his ideas and incorporate them into rock music. I wasn’t the first to mine his playing for new ideas—tt was Travis’s style, melded with traditional blues, which in many regards gave way to rockabilly—Scotty Moore, who played with Elvis in the early years, was certainly a Travis protoge.

I have yet to perfect Merle’s style, but I have made elements of his playing my own—I only use thumbpicks, and approach playing chords much in the same way. Here’s a clip of Merle Travis playing one his his best-known instrumental pieces, “Cannonball Rag.” Give a listen for yourself, and see what you think.

Adrian