Piedmont blues

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The Piedmont blues (also known as Piedmont fingerstyle) is a type of blues music characterized by a unique fingerpicking method on the guitar in which a regular, alternating-thumb bass pattern supports a melody using treble strings. The result is comparable in sound to a ragtime piano. The Piedmont style is differentiated from other styles (particularly the Mississippi Delta style) by its older, ragtime rhythms, which also prevented it from being particularly influential on later electric band blues and rock 'n' roll.

The basis of the Piedmont style was the older guitar style that seems to have been universal throughout the South and was based at least to some extent on formal "parlor guitar" techniques. Varieties of this older style can be heard in players from other areas, including Mississippi John Hurt from the Delta, Frank Stokes from Memphis, and Mance Lipscomb from Texas--but if one is going to group musicians into regional styles, these clearly cannot be classed as Piedmont players. What was particular to the Piedmont was that a generation of players adapted these older, ragtime-based techniques to blues in a particular way, influenced by such guitar virtuosos as Blind Blake and Gary Davis (as well as less-recorded masters like Willie Walker).

The Piedmont blues typically refers to a greater area than Piedmont, which refers to the East Coast of the United States from about Richmond, Virginia to Atlanta, Georgia. Piedmont blues musicians come from this area, as well as Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida. It was made popular in the early twentieth century.

Musicians

Prominent musicians who play or played the Piedmont blues include:

Pink Anderson Etta Baker Blind Blake Bull City Red Cephas & Wiggins ("Bowling Green" John Cephas and Phil Wiggins) Elizabeth Cotten Floyd Council Reverend Gary Davis Blind Boy Fuller "Barbecue Bob" Hicks George Higgs Peg Leg Howell	Mississippi John Hurt John Jackson Furry Lewis Brownie McGhee Blind Willie McTell Charlie Parr Slate Hill Phil Jon Shain Cootie Stark Sonny Terry Curley Weaver Josh White

External links

• Piedmont Blues Preservation Society
• East Coast Piedmont Blues

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Last updated on Thursday February 07, 2008 at 12:20:45 PST (GMT -0800)
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