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MERLE TRAVISTHE MAN WHO NAMED THE STYLE

by Mark Humphrey

“I’d probably be looking at the rear end of a mule ifit weren’t for Merle Travis.” —Chet Atkins

“Well, we liked good whiskey and we loved the pretty girlsAnd we loved them guitars—me and Ol’ Merle.”

—Joe Maphis, “Me and Ol’ Merle,” Silverhill Music (BMI)

“Now here’s Kentucky’s pride and joy, Mrs. Travis’s little boy,Merle, and his ten little baby fingers on the ‘Cannonball Rag.”

—Cliffie Stone, introducing Travis on Harmony Homestead,KPAS, Pasadena, Oct. 31, 1945

Though its days werenumbered, radio was stillthe supreme pop culturemedium when World WarII ended. It hosted every-thing from soaps to sym-phonies, but live hillbillymusic was one of its topdraws . The GIs whomarched to war with headsfull of Roy Acuff and EltonBri t t ( “There ’ s a Star-Spangled Banner WavingSomewhere”) returned tofind hillbilly music em-broiled in a critical transi-tion. They tuned in their

radios to hear a revolution being waged in several forms ofcountry music—what we’ve come to call bluegrass, WesternSwing, and honky-tonk were plentiful on the air waves, andradiated a potent post-War infusion of energy.

Today, the late 1940s is deemed by many as country’sGolden Age. It was a time of emerging legends (Hank Williamsforemost), and of adroit, aggressive instrumentalists who sethigh standards to which subsequent generations have aspired.This was the era when Earl Scruggs redefined the role of the

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banjo in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. Bob Wills was leadinghis most progressive group of Texas Playboys then, with thejazzy steel of Noel Boggs and bluesy guitar of Junior Barnard.And Wills’s band was only one element of an effervescentcountry talent pool on the West Coast. It was in such swiftcurrents that a 27 year-old Kentucky songwriter/guitarist wassingled out as something uniquely exciting, even in the fastcompany of Texas Playboys, singing cowboys, and sundry Hol-lywood dudebillies. With little seeming effort, Merle Travisdelivered a dazzling new sound to country guitar, one with adistinctive signature. We’ve come to call this style “Travispicking” for the man who shaped and popularized it. Lookingback over more than three generations of country, folk, androck guitar players, it’s hard to imagine our world without it.

Honored extensively in his later years, Travis was relent-lessly self-effacing about his achievements. He was not thefather of Travis picking, he insisted. Credit for its paternitymust be shared among Mose Rager, Ike Everly, and others inWestern Kentucky who inspired him. As for popularizing thestyle, Travis allowed that he probably had, but lavished praiseon his star pupils, Chet Atkins and Doc Watson among them.Their talents, he said, surely surpassed their master’s. But eventhose who share Travis’s self-deprecating assessment acknowl-edge that it was Travis who was the seminal catalyst for one ofthe American guitar’s significant stylistic leaps. Rank him amongsuch “prime movers” as Lonnie Johnson in blues and CharlieChristian in jazz. Travis was of that stature.

Remarkably, guitar playing was not his only talent. Travishad early aspirations of making a name as a cartoonist, thoughwe can be grateful that his talent with a pencil was neverrewarded sufficiently to detract from his genius on the guitar.He had considerably better luck as a songwriter, and littlewonder. He wrote with wit and pathos of Kentucky's coal minersin songs which became folk-pop classics, “Sixteen Tons” and“Dark As A Dungeon.” His other well-known songs reflectedhonky-tonk humor (“Divorce Me C.O.D.”) and cornpone lust(“Sweet Temptation,” “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed”).

Though his songs about mining life have been likened toWoody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, Travis had a knack forbeing topical in song without being overtly political, a prag-matic stance in the McCarthy era. He was also a gifted prosewriter and scripted the “Ride This Train” segments of JohnnyCash's 1969-71 ABC TV series. In later years his autobiographi-

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cal reflections were published everywhere from Guitar World tothe scholarly John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quarterly. Travisdescribed himself to this writer as “a fidgety person... I'm not aperson that can sit down and sit still and stare... I'm a frustratedcartoonist, and I write a few little poems.” That Travis channeledhis nervous energy into creative outlets is to his enduring credit,and has surely been to our benefit.

Merle Robert Travis first saw light in Rosewood, MuhlenbergCounty, Kentucky, on November 29th, 1917. He was the young-est of William Robert and Laura Etta Travis's four children.Decades later, he recalled that his family “was as well off asanyone else,” but that, in Kentucky coal country, wasn't reallysaying much. In Chet Hagen's Country Legends In The Hall OfFame (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Country Music Foundation Press,Nashville, 1982), Travis wrote an autobiographical sketch withthese recollections of childhood: “The Rob Travis family neverlived in a house with electricity, plumbing (inside or out), we neverhad a radio... Dad never owned a car in his life... there was no moneyand new clothes, bought on credit at Beech Creek Coal Companystore, came seldom... our clothes were patched-over patches...But westayed clean, and always had enough to eat except a few time duringcoal mine strikes...

“The first house I could remember living in was owned by a goodold Negro couple that we called Uncle Rufus and Aunt RowenaLittlepage. They had been slaves before the War Between the Statesand were quite old when we moved to the old Littlepage place at thetop of Browder Hill...It was in this old pre-Civil War house that Idiscovered music.” Music arrived in the form of a 5-string banjoRob Travis had gotten from his brother, John. “I was fascinatedby that as a kid,” Travis told me in 1979. His father played suchtunes as “Ida Red” and “Going Across the Sea” in the frailingstyle, and Merle soaked it up.

While he learned the banjo, his brother, Taylor, made aflat-top guitar which he abandoned after landing a factory job inIndiana. “I must’ve been about 12,” Merle recalled. “Taylor wrotea letter back, and at the end of the letter he said, ‘Give Merle theguitar.’ Then I took an interest in it.” Taylor was nearly 20 yearsolder than Merle and was already married. “His wife May playedfingerpicking style real good,” Travis recalled. “Old stuff she playedlike ‘The Devil and Old Aunt Dinah,’ ‘Lost John,’ and a whole lot ofpretty stuff.”

While the Travis family lacked electricity, that didn’t pre-vent them from owning a Westrola phonograph. “We had a

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guitar solo record by Nick Lucas,” Travis remembered. “One sidewas called ‘Picking the Guitar’ and the other side was called ‘Teasingthe Frets.’ And, boy, we’d say, ‘Can’t that feller play? Wow!’ Me andmy brother, John, we’d play it over and over again. We also had oneby Chris Bouchillon, you ever hear of him? He was a comedian andhe’d talk, and man, if he hadn’t been talking people would’ve saidwhat a great guitar player he was! He’d play fingerpicking stylebehind his talking stuff like ‘Born In Hard Luck’ and it was fine, goodpicking.”

Aside from his sister-in-law and the family phonograph,Travis was soon exposed to plenty of “fine, good picking” via athriving local guitar scene. We don’t know why the guitar wasthe favorite instrument around Muhlenberg County but it hadovershadowed the f iddle and banjo by the mid-1920s.“Downhome, them ol’ boys just kinda knocked on a banjo and playedafter a fiddle,” Ike Everly recalled at the Newport Folk Festivalin 1969. “All of ‘em down there liked the guitar. It seemed to be allguitar players. Get out on the railroad crossing, you know, andthere’d be a bunch as big as this and you’d just pass the thing [guitar]around, and every guy would try to outdo the next one, you know. Orseems as though he did. They all could play.”

And there were plenty of them. In his careful efforts to givecredit where due, Travis often reeled off the names of unre-corded Kentucky guitarists of the 1930s who impressed him:

Photo courtesy of Cindy Travis

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Orval Raymer, Pip Stevens, Plucker English, Raymond McClellan(“His eyes were crossed and his lower lip stuck out”), and CundiffDurham, whose “fingers were a foot long,” Travis wrote in GUI-TAR WORLD. “When he played ‘Tiger Rag’ his hands looked likegiant spiders.” There were others too, and while we can’t knowhow much of their music we would today call “Travis picking,”there was a strong current of fingerstyle guitar music runningthrough Western Kentucky. One of its sources was an African-American guitarist/fiddler, Arnold Shultz (1886-1931).

Shultz made an enduring impression on Bill Monroe, whogrew up north of Travis’s territory in Rosine and vividly recalls“seconding” Shultz as a kid. Monroe credits Shultz as the sourceof many of the blues elements in bluegrass. Shultz appears tohave played a similar role in the development of the guitartradition around Muhlenberg County. “About 1920 Shultz hadmet and impressed a young white man from the area, KennedyJones,” wrote Charles K. Wolfe in Kentucky Country: Folk andCountry Music of Kentucky (The University Press of Kentucky,Lexington, 1982). Jones provided the link between Shultz andthe players who had the greatest impact on Travis, such as IkeEverly and Mose Rager. “He was the first guy I ever saw play witha thumbpick,” Rager said of Jones. “And so I just went crazy aboutthat kind of pickin’...he could pick a tune out on the guitar and it’dsound like two guitars playin'.” At a Newport Folk Festival work-shop, Phil Everly said of this style, “Dad learned it from a mannamed Kennedy Jones, who learned it from Arnold Shultz... If youlook at the area around Drakesboro, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky,your basic elements of country music come from a black man.”

Travis never saw Arnold Shultz, and only saw KennedyJones after his own career had begun. Of Everly and Rager hewould say, “I’d like to hear something today that thrilled me likethey did then...I thought that it was the prettiest music I had heardin my life. So I went home and found a piece of celluloid that was acomb originally, and I scraped it down thin enough to put in hotwater and shape into a thumb pick. And I tried to play like they did.”

Everly demonstrated just how they played at the NewportFolk Festival, picking such tunes as “Ike Everly Rag”. What heplayed sounded not unlike the guitar ragtime of Gary Davis:there may be a stylistic kinship between Piedmont style guitarand what some historians tag “western Kentucky choking style.”Everly played “the oldest tune I know,” an unidentified melodypicked straight, slow, and sentimental. “Then,” he said, “if youwanted to dance...” He picked up the pace of the tune, laying

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down the thumbed bass and melodic syncopation, demonstrat-ing the clear bass-treble register separation which is a signatureof ‘Travis picking’. It’s a sound less suggestive of old-time banjo(one supposed inspiration for the style) than stride piano. In thesame way that pianists learned to “rag” (syncopate) a familiartune, Kentucky guitarists made “square” melodies danceable.And that may be the original “raison d’etre” of Travis picking: itwas a means for a lone guitarist to produce dance music in theabsence of other musicians.

Travis was mastering the guitar style which would laterbear his name during the Depression. Chronic unemploymentleft the men of Muhlenberg County plenty of time to hone theirguitar skills. The picking parties ended, however, when Travisbecame one of the quarter million young men who went off toCivilian Conservation Corps camps in the wake of the New Deal

legislation of 1933. “I waspa id th i r t y do l l a r s amonth,” he recalled, “but Ihad to send twenty-fiveback home, so I ended upmak ing f i v e do l l a r s amonth.” But a Depressiondollar went a long way,so Travis easi ly savedenough to buy a Gretsch(“the first decent guitar Ihad”). With a new guitarand ample teen spirit,Travis bummed aroundthe country for a fewmonths with a mandolin-ist, Junior Rose. Theysang and played for tipson street corners: “I havea sick sister in Texas,”

Travis would lie. “If any of you people would like to help us, justpitch any loose change you have in your pockets here in front of us.”

He stopped over in Evansville to visit his brother Taylor,and found himself playing for a live broadcast of one of thoseinfamous “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” dance marathons. “Iplayed ‘Tiger Rag’ as much like Mose Rager as I could,” Travisrecalled. The performance led to a job for the 18-year-old onEvansville station WGBF as guitarist with the Knox County

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Knockabouts. By 1936, radio was well established as the majormeans of communication and entertainment in America, andradio jobs, even ones where the only pay was the opportunity toplug gigs, were coveted. Travis’s stint as a Knockabout wasshort-lived, but he returned to Evansville radio in another band,the Tennessee Tomcats. Then he hit the road with a legend ofAmerican fiddling, Clayton McMichen (1900-1970). For thebetter part of a year, Travis was a Georgia Wildcat. (In 1981,Travis recorded a tribute to his old boss, “The Clayton McMichenStory,” CMH-9028.)

Travis was closing in on the big time, which meant expo-sure at a major radio station. Cincinnati’s WLW had 50,000watts and was heard across much of America. Travis arrivedthere as a Drifting Pioneer, one of a quartet garbed in buckskinsand coonskin caps two decades before the Davy Crockett craze.The Pioneers sang gospel and played what Travis believed“today would absolutely be called bluegrass music. We had amandolin, fiddle, guitar and bass, and I played 5-string banjonow and then. This was from 1938 to 1941, something likethat.” A Drifting Pioneers’ Song Folio from WLW offered briefbios of the band members, and underlines the extent to whichTravis’s guitar style was already a draw: “Merle (‘Pappy’) Travis,youngest member of the group, sings bass in the quartet and isfamous for his guitar playing, which he first learned in the hills of oldKentucky at Drakesboro.”

Travis’s stint at WLW introduced him to other musicianswho became lifelong friends and legends in their own right,notably the Delmore Brothers and Louis M. “Grandpa” Jones. Inhis autobiography, Everybody’s Grandpa: Fifty Years Behind theMike (with Charles K. Wolfe, the University of Tennessee Press,Knoxville, 1984), Jones wrote: “Merle was rough-and-tumble inthose days, and he and Red Phillips used to go out and get in fightsjust for the exercise of it. Sometimes they’d come in pretty banged up,but they would be able to do their show and pick as clean as ever.”

WLW took “Travis picking” to remote hamlets; Doc Watson,who grew up in Deep Gap, North Carolina, has often recalledonstage how he tried to apply Travis’s style to the DelmoreBrothers’ “Deep River Blues.” In his autobiography, CountryGentleman (with Bill Neely, Ballantine Books, New York, 1974),Chet Atkins wrote: “I would pick up WLW and Merle about once amonth when conditions were right...His guitar style was closer tothat sound I had been searching for than anything I had ever heard.The clever way he played melody and rhythm at the same time

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knocked me over. I knew he was finger picking, but I didn’t know howhe was doing it...From Merle Travis I added a lot of songs to myrepertoire. He certainly stimulated my imagination as to what couldbe done with a guitar.”

Working at a major radio station gave Travis the opportu-nity to refine his own playing, too. “I used to listen to big bands,”he recalled, “and listen to that guy play those pretty chords. WhenI got on radio, we’d do our country programs, and then I’d slip in towhere the big orchestras were playing and I’d watch the staffguitarists reading that music and playing them chords!” The orches-tral chords and harmonic sophistication learned from radio staffguitarists added another dimension to the style Travis broughtwith him from Kentucky.

December 7, 1941, the “Day That Shall Live In Infamy,”changed everyone’s life in America. Well-fed radio musicianswere understandably not among the first to enlist to repel theAxis, though their day would come. Meanwhile, Travis, theDelmore Brothers, and Grandpa Jones were performing sacredsongs on WLW as the Brown’s Ferry Four. “We sang spirituals,gospel numbers, and hymns,” Travis recalled. “Spirituals got a littlehard to find, but we found a source. We would go down in the blackpart of town on Central Avenue in Cincinnati and go to a used-recordshop. We’d go to where it said ‘Spirituals,’ and, man, they were thereby the dozens, by the Golden Gate Quartet and other black quartets.

Photo courtesy of Cindy Travis

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Now the fellow who owned this [shop] Syd Nathan, was a little shortman who had asthma and wore real thick glasses. We got acquaintedwith him. One day he said, ‘Why don’t you boys make your ownrecords?’ We said, ‘Well, there ain’t nobody asked us.’ He said,‘Well, I’m asking you. I’m going to start me a record company. I wantyou boys to record for me.' ” Fearing the wrath of WLW, withwhom they were under exclusive contract, Travis and Jonesbecame the Sheppard Brothers in a Dayton, Ohio recordingstudio in September, 1943. They recorded “You’ll Be Lonesome,Too” and “The Steppin’ Out Kind.” The record (King 500) wentnowhere, but is significant as the first release on Nathan’s Kinglabel, which figured prominently in the R&B, bluegrass, andcountry of the 1950s. Travis’s first solo effort became the secondKing release. Though attributed to Bob McCarthy, there was noattempt to disguise his signature guitar. Thirty-six years aftermaking his first record, Travis played a chipped, cracked copyof its A side for me. “When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down”celebrated the demise of Il Duce in July, 1943. There was theunmistakable Travis guitar style, accompanying a much highervoice than I’d ever heard from him!

Bob McCarthy had a one-shot recording career and MerleTravis joined the Marines. His was a brief military stint (“I wasn’tno Sergeant York”), and he returned to Cincinnati in the bitterwinter of 1944. WLW welcomed Travis home, but he wasrestless and borrowed enough money for a train ticket to LosAngeles. There he found himself in the midst of one of the mostactive country music scenes in the nation and one with the lureof Hollywood films attached. Travis never said he went Westwith movies in mind, but he no doubt had seen the silverscreen’s variously-talented crooning cowpokes and may havefigured he could do that too.

Travis did not star in any of the Forties ‘oaters’ Hollywood’ssecond-string studios delivered en masse, but he did whoop,shoot, ride down hills, and deliver the occasional line: “Let’s seewhat Nevada’s got to say,” uttered in a Ray Whitley epic was hisfirst. The singing cowboy fraternity embraced Travis, and hisfriendship with the likes of Tex Ritter, Eddie Dean, SmileyBurnette, and Jimmy Wakely kept Travis steadily employed,sometimes on movie sets and more often on bandstands andradio soundstages. Cliffie Stone was perhaps his most importantearly L.A. ally, for Stone was an affable MC/bassist who enlistedTravis to perform on several L.A.-area radio shows—HarmonyHomestead, Dinner Bell Round Up, Hollywood Barn Dance, etc.

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He also apprised Capitol A&R man Lee Gillette of Travis’stalents, and Capitol signed him as an artist in 1946. Travis’s firstrelease under his own name on a major label, “Cincinnati Lou”b/w “No Vacancy,” became a double-sided hit. And the hits, fora couple of years anyway, flew thick and fast from Travis.

Ironically, his best remembered recordings from his com-mercial prime were flops which Travis produced with somereluctance. “People got folk song happy for awhile,” Travis re-called. “Cliffie Stone said, ‘We [Capitol] need you to make an albumof folk songs.’ In those days, albums didn’t mean anything; it wassingles that sold. I said, ‘Cliffie, Bradley Kincaid and Burl Ives havesung every folk song that I ever heard of.’ He said, ‘Write some.’ Isaid, ‘You don’t write folk songs.’ He said, ‘Well, write some thatsound like folk songs.’” Travis wrote “Sixteen Tons” and “Dark asa Dungeon” for the eight-song “Folk Songs of the Hills” 78album, which met with little commercial success in 1947. Itseventual impact is discussed at length in Archie Green’s Only aMiner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs (University of Illi-nois Press, Urbana, 1972).

While his first album bombed, Travis’s singles (especially“So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed”) were among the mostpopular country records of 1947, the same year Travis wroteCapitol’s first million seller, “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (ThatCigarette),” for Tex Williams. He was 30 and in his creative

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prime, a Kentucky cowboy on a motorcycle whose wild sideoccasionally landed him in the drunk tank. But more often hewas up to something interesting like designing a solid bodyelectric guitar. Travis admired the sustain of steel guitars andreckoned it “was because the steel guitar was solid.” An announcerfor L.A. area motorcycle races, Paul A. Bigsby, had made abeautiful steel guitar for Joaquin Murphy and Travis drew aguitar “with a peghead showing all the pegs on one side” and askedBigsby to build one. A few weeks later Bigsby called, saying,“Travis, I’ve got that crazy looking guitar you wanted.” It attracteda lot of admirers, including Leo Fender, who asked to borrowand copy it. Travis obliged, and the rest, they say, is history. Theoriginal Travis/Bigsby solid body is now in Nashville’s CountryMusic Hall of Fame Museum.

At this time too, Travis was experimenting with multi-tracking, an innovation usually associated with Les Paul. “I hada record released like that before Les did,” Travis said. “I learnedhow to do that by messing around with the old home recordingmachines. I’d take the thing that turned the turntable off and thatwould make it turn slow. I’d cut it slow and then play it back fast andit would sound sort of like Mickey Mouse. And I had a record releasedcalled ‘Merle’s Boogie Woogie’ where I did that.” The 1948 record-ing, a natural for the hillbilly boogie craze of the late Forties,included a line Travis got from Leadbelly. “Me and Leadbelly andTex Ritter once played for an affair,” he recalled. “They recorded usas we performed, and then auctioned off our records for a benefit.

Leadbelly taught me averse I used on one of myold records, one of the firstmulti-track recordings Iguess was ever made. Itwent, ‘Got a little gal withgreat big legs, walks likeshe’s walkin’ on soft-boiledeggs.”’

The flood of Fortieshits turned to a tricklein the Fifties, thoughTravis remained activeas a performer in Los An-geles. He was a fixtureof early television coun-try variety shows (“All

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American Jubilee”and “Town Hall Party”), and had a small butsignificant role as Sal Anderson singing “Re-enlistment Blues” inthe classic 1953 film, “From Here to Eternity.” This was the era,too, of the Snader Telescriptions which comprise the lion’sshare of this video. Travis remembered them in Recollections ofMerle Travis: 1944-1955 (John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quar-terly, Vol. XV, No. 54, Summer 1979). “Mr. Snader figured, nowthat television’s here, folks will want to see the people who makerecords as well as hear them. He reasoned that a day would comewhen there’d be some sort of ‘jockey’ on TV playing music but theywouldn’t call him a disc jockey. He’d probably be a film-jockey. Foryears transcriptions were played on the radio, so why not do thesame thing with film? So that is how Snader Telescriptions cameabout.”

“I made a good many of them. I done some alone, wherein I’dwalk on the scene and spout off a little bit about what I was going topick and sing, then go to it. I also made a few with Judy Hayden[Travis’s second wife]. They were fun. I still have a few of them.When I see the films I wonder if I was ever that young and foolish.”

Television liked Travis alright but loved the face of a manTravis had first met as a radio announcer, Tennessee Ernie Ford.

By 1955, Ford’sface was familiarac ros s Amer i cafrom his week-dayhalf-hour show onNBC. It was therehe introduced JackFas -c ina to ’ s a r -rangement of “Six-teen Tons,” andwhen he recordedit in September, hee f f e c t i v e l y

changed Travis’s life. (“I owe my soul to Tennessee Ernie Ford,”Travis ruefully sang in later years.) Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” hadalready rocketed to number one on Billboard pop charts byThanksgiving, and by December 3rd the music trade marveledthat “Sixteen Tons” was “possibly the fastest rising platter to everhit the charts.” It had, in less than three months, sold over amillion records. The song was more than a hit—it was a sensa-tion, and its author became a folk hero.

Back home they dedicated a monument to Travis in

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Ebenezer, Kentucky in 1956, engraved with the chorus of“Sixteen Tons” and an image of Travis with a guitar to his leftand a miner’s pick and shovel to his right. “His songwriting, hissinging and his guitar playing,” reads the inscription, “have wonthe hearts of many and the respect of his fellow workers.” Twenty-seven years later, his ashes were scattered near this monument.

The success of “Sixteen Tons” was a foreshock of the folkboom ushered in by the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” in 1958.Travis appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1962 on a bill with Flatt &Scruggs, but missed the opportunity to play much of a role inthe 1960s urban folk revival. (The role to which he seemed bestsuited fell, by default, to Doc Watson.) Unreliability and tales ofwhisky and pills made bookings scarce and a 1963 album,“Songs of the Coal Mines,” shared both topicality and commer-cial obscurity with “Folk Songs of the Hills” without everyielding another “Sixteen Tons.” Bob Kingsley, who today hoststhe syndicated American Country Countdown radio show, touredwith Travis in the mid-Sixties while Travis was attempting acomeback. Kingsley’s job was to chauffeur Travis and keep himstraight. “He had a real problem believing how great he was,”Kingsley recalls. “He didn't believe it when people told him he wasan innovator and one-of-a-kind. That’s what made him crazy.”Craziness and creativity have never been strangers, and a mel-lowed Travis played a stronger elder statesman role in the1970s. When the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band went to Nashville torecord the influential “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” album in1971, Travis was among the honored elders enlisted to perform,along with Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs,etc. The recordings underscored Travis’s seminal role in coun-try guitar, and brought him to an audience of baby boomersscarcely conceived in his commercial heyday. In 1975, heshared a Grammy with his star pupil, Chet Atkins, for “TheAtkins-Travis Traveling Show” (the album won in the category,‘Best Country Instrumental Performance’). Nashville’s hierar-chy honored Travis with induction into the Country Music Hallof Fame in 1977, and the late Seventies brought Travis to a newlabel, CMH, for which he recorded extensively in his last years.

Those years were spent in eastern Oklahoma, where thelandscape turns lush and hilly as one moves towards the Arkan-sas Ozarks and its lake country. Merle Travis settled there in awooden ranch house overlooking scenic Lake Tenkiller with hislast wife, Dorothy. He suffered a heart attack at home and diedin Tahlequa, Oklahoma, on October 20th, 1983.

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In the decade since his passing, his legacy as guitarist hasbeen poorly served by CD reissues. Almost none of the classicguitar solos from Travis’s 23-year-stint with Capitol are avail-able on CD. Let’s hope that changes. Meanwhile, guitaristsneedn’t hesitate to apply the pause and rewind button whenviewing this video. There’s a heap of hot licks here. And non-players can simply enjoy the avuncular personality of a multi-talented Kentuckian who gifted Muhlenberg County’s best mu-sic on the world.

Notes by Mark HumphreyThanks to Mary Katherine Aldin for the Ike and Phil Everly material.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH MERLE TRAVISWITH MARK HUMPHREY JUNE 21, 1979

How did you come to record the collection of guitar solos called“Walkin' The Strings?”

Now they had such a thing as fillers, and I went in to do sometranscriptions, and Cliffie Stone was the producer. Now they call itproducer, which is a weird name because that’s the man who putsup the money and the director’s the guy who tells you what to do.So Cliffie Stone was directing the session. He’d say, “Play somethingthat lasts 30 seconds.” OK; when the clock went straight up I’d justbegin picking something, and when the 30 seconds was up I’d quit.“Now play one that lasts 45 seconds,” and so forth and so on. So Iplayed one — “Keep playing till you get tired” — so I played “IkeEverly’s Rag,” one that Ike Everly used to play. But some of thesetranscriptions only lasted 15 seconds.

A fellow named Joe Allison went to Capitol Records and said,“You should release all those transcriptions on an album by Travis,”and they did. And they made up names to the tunes — one wascalled “Louisville Clog,” and one was called “Pigmeat Stomp.”And you had nothing to do with the names.

No indeed.What year would this have been?

I don’t know. This was in the ’40s when I recorded it, I’m notsure when they released it.And this is the album called “Walkin’ the Strings.” Capitol, 1960 FrenchReissue, Pathé Marconi 1550801 1984

YeahAnd that’s kind of a rarity, isn’t it?

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Well, it should be. (laughs) I didn’t know this thing wasreleased, and I was somewhere playing a show, and somebody camein, saying, “Play ‘Pigmeat Stomp.’” And I said, “You got me there, Idon’t believe I’ve ever heard of it.” He said, “Well you should, yourecorded it!” I said, “Well, you’re thinking of someone else. MaybeChet Atkins, although I’ve never heard Chet play it, and I’m sure Inever recorded “Pigmeat Stomp.” He said, “You sure did!” And Isaid, “Well, now buddy, I’d like to see a record of it.” He said, “I’vegot it out in the car.” (laughs) He brought in this album, and on itwas a tune called “Pigmeat Stomp.” And if it was to save my life, Ihad no idea what it was.I’ll bet this has thrown some curve balls to record researchers throughthe years, because Big Bill Broonzy recorded a tune in 1930 called“Pigmeat Strut,” and some folks have probably looked at a Travisdiscography and said, “Aha! he got that from Big Bill Broonzy.”

(Laughs) I have no idea where they came up with those titles.I had no idea Big Bill Broonzy had a tune called “Pigmeat Strut.”That’s a new one on me. Did he record “Louisville Clog?”I don’t think he did. Was this on electric guitar or acoustic guitar?

That’s the funny thing. The boys down at Capitol Recordsalways seemed to get all screwed up in what they tried to do withme. Not one single tune on the “Walking the Strings” album hadan electric guitar note on it. And on the cover was me sittingthere just as big as life with an electric guitar. Now then, onetime I got Curly Chalker and Carl Cottoner and Harold Hensleyand Jimmy Pruett and a bunch of good musicians there inHollywood and I went down to re-cut some of the old stuff I’ddone in the 1940s. This was in the 1960s. The title of the albumwas “Travis.” I didn’t pick one note of acoustic guitar. Therethey put a picture of me with an acoustic flat-top round holeguitar leaning up against a rock. I declare, I believe that if I’dmade an album with me playing the clarinet, they’d have had meon the cover with a dulcimer.That’s almost as bad as an album I have of bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkinsthat has a picture of Reverend Gary Davis on it.

(Laughs) Maybe they should release one of mine and putJohnny Cash’s picture on it.Among the things you are noted for is your design work on the first solidbody electric guitar. How did that come about?

This thing has backfired on me so many times! This is one ofthe things I told Chet Flippo about, the guy from Rolling Stone. Yousee, with a guitar like this (i.e., his Gibson Super 400), changingstrings, you have to reach around, and I thought, “Boy wouldn’t itbe nice if they made a neck with the keys all on one side?” So I drewa picture of it. Now your recording machine (with the dials on top)

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is exactly how they should make an amplifier. They put the controlsdown below so that when you need to adjust your amplifier you’vegot to squat down and stick your rear end right towards theaudience. They should put them on top. But I’ve never been able totalk them into it.

Well, with the guitar, I thought, “Why not put the keys on oneside? And if they have the electric pickups on it, why all this?” (i.e.,a reference to the full acoustic body of the Super 400) Paul Bigsbywas a friend of mine who announced motorcycle races. He couldbuild anything, he was a pattern maker at a factory. He’d builtJoaquin Murphy, who played with Spade Cooley, a steel guitar. Isaid, ‘Could you build me a guitar if I’d draw you a picture of it?’And Paul was a loud-talking braggart sort of guy. He said, ‘I canbuild anything!’ So I drew him a picture. I said, “Now I want thisjust a little over an inch thick and solid, because the pickups arewhat makes the noise anyhow.” I drew him a picture of the neck andsaid, “I want all the keys on one side.” Well, he built it. It workedfine and it played good.

Cliffie Stone was playing a dance at Placentia, CA four milesout of Fullerton. In those days, that meant four miles of oranges.Now it’s probably four miles of houses. Well, Leo Fender came outand said, “How do you like that guitar?” I said, “Fine.” I told him allthe advantages — “you haven’t got all that bulk, you haven’t got somuch to carry, when you want to tune it all the keys are right therehandy, you don’t have to reach under to get some.” He said, “CouldI borrow it for a week and build one like it?” I said, “Sure.” So hetook it, and the next week he brought one out like it, and it was just

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as good, although mine was built out of Bird’s Eye Maple, and hehadn’t gone to that much trouble.

Three or four fellows went to Bigsby and said, “I want one ofthose solid-body guitars with all the keys on one side like Travis hasgot.” Well after three or four, Bigsby said, “Look, I ain’t got time tomess with those things. If you want one of those silly things, go outto Fullerton, Leo Fender will build you one.” And they go out there,and Leo would build them one. He built them one hundred, he builtthem one thousand, he built them one million, and he built a bigfactory (laughs). He revolutionized the guitar. Naturally, somebodyhad to design it, even if it was an idiot like me.

I told this story to Chet Flippo and he would go out to theFender factory, asked some of the boys, and they said, “Travis neverplayed a solid-body guitar in his life.” The Vice-President of theFender Co., Forrest White, saw the article in Rolling Stone and hesent me a picture of me and steel guitarist Speedy West and PaulBigsby sitting out in my backyard, and me with this guitar. Thepicture was taken two days after it was built. And I’ve got a garagefull of pictures of me playing this thing long before the Fenderguitar was ever built.

Let me say this about Fender guitars — they’re fine precisionbuilt instruments, and I love ‘em. They’re great. I’ve learned not todo this, but I have walked up to some young fellow and said, “Howdo you like your Fender guitar?” He’d say, “Oh, I like it.” I’d say, “Idon’t blame you, it’s good. By the way, I designed that guitar.” Andthey’ll look at me like I had smallpox, and walk away. I can imaginethem saying, “You know some old character came in here; he was alittle off his rocker, he thought he’d designed the Fender guitar.” Iguess they think it grew out of the ground that way. I don’t thinkthey think anybody designed it.You didn’t try to patent it or do anything like that at the time?

There’s nothing to patent. You couldn’t patent a design. Likethat drinking glass that you have there. You can make a glass anyway you want to; it’s already been invented. As far as solid-bodyguitars, the solid-body steel guitars gave me the idea for mine. Steelguitars have so much more sustain; you pick them and they justkeep on sounding. And I thought, ‘Why don’t they build regularguitars solid?’ And the keys all on one side because I was lazy. Ithink it’s unhandy to have to reach under here.This would’ve been around 1947?

Probably so.You had something to do with the Bigsby bar also.

Yeah. I had the first one ever built, but now a good friend ofmine in Los Angeles, Tom Bresh, has it. This one on my Super 400is probably one of the last ones ever built. He only built three of

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these with the long handles — two for me and one for HankThompson. This one was all dolled up (there’s some fancy engrav-ing on it) by a gunsmith, Dick Allen.

I had a Vibrola bar and Chet Atkins had one, made by theGibson company. They worked up and down (parallel), just theopposite of the way the Bigsby bar does (horizontal). I like theeffect, you got a good vibrato, but they pulled the strings out oftune. So I griped to Bigsby, I said, “You say you can fix anything.Can you fix this thing so it won’t pull the strings out of tune?”“Absolutely!” Well he took it and worked on it, so I put it back onmy guitar and it still pulled the strings out of tune. He tried it acouple of times, and finally said, “The way that thing’s designed,you can’t fix it to where it won’t pull the strings out of tune.” I said,“Why don’t you build one?” He said, “I could build one that wouldnever pull the strings out of tune.” I said, “You can’t do it.” He said,“By George, I’ll show you.” Well, in about a week he came up withthe one Tom Bresh has now. And it does not pull the strings out oftune. He said he sets the strings on a needle valve in there. They siton a thing the size of a needle inside there.The first solid-body is in the Country Music Hall of Fame now.

Yeah.It has quite a bit of decoration. Was all that your design?

Yeah, I thought that would look pretty. I always thought abanjo looked pretty because it had an armrest, and a fiddle lookedpretty because it had a tailpiece. So that one’s got an armrest and atailpiece.

I admire people who stick by their principles, and I’ve heardpeople say, “I would never play an electric instrument. I play anacoustic guitar because I don’t want the people I play for to hear anamplified guitar. So I play an acoustic guitar, period.” And thenwhen they go to perform they will gripe their head off unless thehall has a $100,000 public address system in order that his listenerscan hear his guitar amplified through that system.

Why not have one like this (his electric Super 400) with thepickups on it and the amplifier sitting down by you so you canadjust it yourself? It’s exactly the same thing. If you make a record,the man in the control room turns the controls up to make theguitarist’s instrument sound big and pretty and loud. That’s exactlywhy the pickups are put on here. This is carrying the microphoneon your guitar instead of sitting in front of it. The acoustic guitarpurists all mean well, but they haven’t stopped to think, “Now wait— this is a guitar with the microphone under the strings instead ofout in front of it.”So you don’t change your style at all playing acoustic or electric guitar?

No.

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I wanted to ask you about that beautiful Guild hanging on the wall. I’vewondered about that since I saw it on the cover of the album, “The Bestof Merle Travis.” Is that another one you designed?

Yeah. I was playing that solid-body for awhile, and the Gibsoncompany asked me, “What could we do to get you to go back toplaying a Gibson?” Of course I’d started out playing a Gibson assoon as I had enough money to get one. I said, “if you’ll build mea Super-400 the way I design it, I’ll play it.” They said, “We’ll do it.”So I drew a picture of a Super-400, I put a star up here, I put myname on the neck, I dolled it up, and said, “The Gibson, Special.”So they built it for me, and it’s worked pretty well. I’ve got 2 or 3

of these things. Thesame story with Guild.They said, “What canwe get you to do to playa Gretsch?” I said, “I’lldo it if you’ll build oneexactly as I draw it.” Ihad some ideas, and it’snot bad. I said, “I wantyou to carve the top outof a one inch piece ofwood, but leave the in-side uncarved. Leave itflat inside.” So that gui-tar is arched on top butit’s an inch thick underthe bridge. And theback, too. I drew the

whole thing — the red checkers around, I got that idea from a guitarGene Autry used in pictures years ago. The sound hole is copiedfrom an old-time Gibson — the oval sound hole. And I designedthat top up there, the curlicue.And you designed the armrest and the pickguard also.

Yeah, I thought it made it look better.Why such thick wood?

For sustain. I wanted it to sound like a solid-body but lookotherwise. The reason I don’t use it more is because the neck was alittle too broad, and I took it to a friend and said, “Make the necka little smaller.” And he cut it down to where it’s like a ukulele neck.(laughs) Would you tell me about your acoustic guitar?

It’s a D-28 Martin with a Bigsby neck.How old is the Martin body?

I bought it probably in 1939. I had Bigsby put that neck on just

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after he made that first solid-body guitar. I liked the neck so well,the size and everything, that I had him put one on the Martin. Nowthe neck on the Gibson is exactly the size of the Bigsby neck. That’snot a regular Gibson neck. It’s smaller and thinner.So you’ve been playing the body of that acoustic guitar for about 40years, and the neck for about 30.

Yeah.Have you had to modify it at all in recent years?

I put a new bridge on it not long ago.Have you had to change the frets?

No, I haven’t.What gauge strings do you use?

I just go in and say, ‘Give me a set of Gibson electric and a setof Martin acoustic,‘ and put them on and forget about it. When Iopen up the package and look at those numbers, I have no idea whatthey all mean.So you don’t bother about light gauge or medium gauge.

No, I don’t.Did you ever use flat-wound strings?

Yeah, but I never had much luck with them because they diedtoo quick. After about one day they’d just go, ‘thump, thump.’Maybe they’ve improved, I haven’t tried them in a long time.Do you change your strings very often?

Not very often. If I’m recording a guitar solo I like to havestrings that are fairly new because you get a better ring from them.Otherwise, I don’t change them too often.What kind of thumbpick are you using?

These little old thin thumbpicks are hard to find, but if I canfind them I use them. I have no idea who makes them. You’ll findme awfully dumb when you ask me what gauge these guitar stringsare. I use a Music Man amplifier, and I’ll have young fellows comeup and say, “Hey, I like your amplifier. I like the way that amplifiersounds. How many amps has it got?” And I don’t know what to say.I say, ‘You know, I never have counted them.’ They’ll say, “Well,how many watts does it have?” I say, ‘I don’t know. I never sat downand counted ‘em. It might be 3 or 4 or 100.’ I have no idea how manywatts or amps. If it sounds good and loud and clear, that’s good.Most people think you pick with just the thumb and first finger, butsometimes you use two fingers.

Sometimes I use three. Like in “Caravan”. (Demonstrates,playing a treble roll over the top three strings with three fingers.)Even in “Wildwood Flower”. (Demonstrates again.) Years ago, Iused just thumb and index finger. In that style you can get a chokesound or you can play with open strings.How did you develop that choking effect?

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Mose Rager played like that. (Demonstrates with a blues.) Onthe album I did with Joe Maphis for CMH, we recorded “Ike Everly’sRag.” We told the company president that the song is owned byMargaret Everly, Ike’s widow. We also recorded one called “MoseRager’s Blues,” and the royalties will go to Mose. That’s the least wecould do. (The album referred to is Country Guitar Giants (CMH-9017).)You recorded something where you put a high E string on for the thirdstring and tuned that up an octave above normal pitch for the third stringG.

Right. It was like the top E string fretted at the third fret. Irecorded with this string setup on “Beer Barrel Polka” and “BlackDiamond Blues.”On some of your guitar solos, on the records of “Fat Gal,” “Sweet

Temptation” and “FollowThru”, the guitar breakssound very high. Were youusing any kind of unusualstring setup?

No, I might havebeen using a capo.Did you ever p lay inalternative tunings?

Yes , I ’ v e p l ayedsome in open G. That’s agood tuning for blues.When I was a kid I used topick some in that tuning,f re t t ing wi th a bot t le .Tha t ’ s no b ig dea l .Everybody’s done that.Then there’s one whereyou tune the fifth string

(A) up to B. This is very good for playing rich orchestral-jazz typechords.What was your first electric guitar?

It was a Gibson L-10 with a DeArmond pickup. The first timeI used it on radio was on a show called “Plantation Party’, a networkshow. This would’ve been in 1939 or ’40. It was sponsored byBugler cigarette tobacco.I recently heard a tape of some stuff you had recorded when you wereusing multi-tracks and speeding up the tape, the sort of thing I’ve heardLes Paul do.

Yeah. I had a record released like that before Les did. I learnedhow to do that by messing with the old home recording machines.

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I’d take the thing that turned the turntable off and would make itturn slow. I’d cut it slow and then play it back fast, and it wouldsound sort of like Mickey Mouse. And I had a record released called“Merle’s Boogie Woogie” where I did that.

Let me say this about Les Paul. I don’t think anybody will evertop him on doing multi-tracks, because he had in his head justexactly how he wanted the bass, the rhythm, every fill, everyharmony part, every obbligato, every bit of it from start to finish. Heperfected it. I might have been the first one to butcher a little oldtune on record, but Les Paul was the best.In your left-hand style you play with your thumb a lot and you don’t playbarre chords.

Oh, sure, (Proceeds to play some complex barre chords.) Butmostly I don’t. Mostly I just grab a guitar neck like a hoe handle.Would you like to say anything about how you developed some of yourfamous guitar solos — “Walking the Strings”, “Cannonball Rag” and“Blue Smoke,” for instance?

“Walking the Strings” and “Cannonball Rag’ are actually dolled-up versions of a couple of little old tunes that Ike and Mose used toplay. (Plays the breakneck intro of “Walking the Strings.”) Simplestthing in the world to play.For you, maybe.

“Blue Smoke” (plays), now there’s one where you use threefingers. “Cannonball Rag” is a round robin tune. There’s a milliontunes like that.What do you mean by round robin?

A round robin chord progression, like “Salty Dog”. (Plays a C/A7/D7/G/C chord progression.) That’s a round robin.You’ve been using a fingerpick on the index finger some whiledemonstrating this. I haven’t seen you use one before.

Before this contract with CMH Records I was to do an album inNashville with Shot Jackson. I was there, and my index fingernailbroke off to the quick. Without that, I can’t play anything at all. Notthat I pick with the fingernail, but I use it as a brace. So Shot Jacksonsaid, ‘Why don’t you try a steel pick?’ I put it on and said “GoodLord, I couldn’t play with one of those things if it was to save mylife.” He said, “If you practised you probably could. Then youwouldn’t have to worry about your fingernails.” So we called andcancelled the session, because I couldn’t play without that finger-nail. But Shot said, “Take that pick anyhow.” I’ve been messing withit, and you get real good sound out of it. (Plays.) It’s much softerwithout the pick. For playing some tunes it’s a lot better. I neverused one in my life till Shot Jackson gave me this one last fall. It’sthe only one I’ve ever owned.On some of your tunes you play a lot with the top E string open, and this

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reminds me somewhat of banjo playing.Well, of course, the banjo is the first instrument I played. I

talked to Sonny Osborne the other day and he said, ‘You playing anydrop-thumb these days?’ I said, What in the world is that?’ Helaughed and said, ‘You’ll find out.’Do you have any favorite solos among your instrumentals?

No, I don’t. I like to play slow pieces better than fast pieces. Ilike to put a rhythm and bass track on tape and sit and play withthem, because every time you’ll play it different. I do that as apastime a lot.What about practice? I’m sure through the years you’ve been so busyworking that you haven’t had to worry about it, but I guess at some pointyou did.

I don’t think I ever said, “I think I’ll sit down and practice”,because if I wasn’t in the mood there wouldn’t be a bit of use inpracticing. Now since I’ve been talking to you I’ve been sitting herepicking on the guitar because I’m a fidgety person. I’m like JohnnyCash, I’m not a person that can sit down and sit still and stare. If youweren’t here I’d be out there cutting grass or in there helpingDorothy can beans. I’m always busy. So when I’m doing nothingelse I play. When I’m sitting watching TV I play every commercialand everything with them. Without even knowing it, I do it. I justfeel better with a guitar in my hands. That’s about all the practiceI do.The jazzy chords that you play, those were things you just worked out?

I guess so. I never took any lessons. The nearest I ever came totaking lessons was bugging Alton Delmore. I said, “What aboutthose shape notes?” And I learned that Do is the tonic note, itdoesn’t matter what key you’re in. The Sons of the Pioneers, whenthey’re talking about harmony, will say, ‘You’re supposed to hit a Lathere.’ Which is a lot easier than going to a piano or guitar andfinding out what key it’s in. You know that La is the sixth note.When you are rehearsing singing, it makes it so much easier ifeveryone knows shape notes.When did you first hear Chet Atkins?

Hey! Now you’ve brought up something. I don’t think thatthere will ever be a chance for any other guitar player to be as greatas Chet. He was born at a time when turn-of-the-century music, thesongs of the ’20s and big bands were still around and not laughedat. He knows it all, from the music to commercial stuff to what wasrecorded this afternoon in Nashville. He is the greatest guitar playerthat has ever been on this earth, in my opinion. I don’t think therewill ever be anyone greater. And that’s what I think of Chet Atkins.What was your reaction when you first heard him?

Chet had written me a letter or two and I had met him in

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Nashville. He told me he listened to me on the radio from Cincin-nati. He said, “I try to play the guitar like you.” The first time I heardhim really turn loose was in about 1945. I’d been out of the MarineCorps a short whileand I was going backto Cincinnati to visitfriends. It was a coldmorning; we did ourshows ear ly in themorning, before day-l ight in the wintert ime . We l l , Che tAtkins was on the ra-dio at the t ime onWLW in Cincinnati.And I was listening tothe radio and the an-nouncer said, “Nowwe’ll have a guitar solofrom Chet Atkins.” Hestarted playing, and Ipulled the car over —it was snowing likeeverything — and satthere and listened to him, and I thought, “Wow!”

Chet honored me by naming his daughter after me. DocWatson honored me by naming his son after me. One day I satdown, looking through letters, and found 43 people had namedtheir children after me. And I have the worst name in the world!They get Merle mixed up with Earl and Pearl and Burl, and Travismixed up with Davis and Traveler. Still, there’s a lot of youngsters,because of me in my stupidity, named Merle and lots named Travis.When you made the album with Chet a few years ago, was that somethingyou’d both planned to do for a long time?

We’d talked about it for many years, and I’d been tied up withCapitol and of course Chet’s a big man at RCA. We’d talk about howmuch fun it would be to make an album together. When we finallymade it, I think both of us could’ve done a lot better picking thanwe did, because we were visiting so much and having fun. We cuthalf of it in Nashville and half in Hollywood. Jerry Reed was in thecontrol room. As they say, he was “producing” most of it. Chet wasplaying some harmonics, and some of them weren’t sounding right.Jerry calls everybody “son”. He hollered through there at Chet, whois his boss at RCA, “Son, when you hit them harmonics, just brush‘em, son, brush ‘em.” Chet looked over at me and grinned, he said

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(imitates Atkins’ voice), “OK, son, I’ll just brush ‘em.” You knowChet has a beautiful East Tennessee accent. I imitate Chet, and TomBresh imitates me.You played some nice harmonics on your recording of “Bicycle Built forTwo”.

Now Chet, he’s got the world skinned on that. He can hit achord that’s half harmonics. “Bicycle Built For Two” was a multi-track recording.What’s the trick to harmonics?

Well, you pick with the thumb and damp with the first finger12 frets below the note you’re fretting (plays some chords inharmonics). Chet, he plays harmonics all over the place — halfchords and half harmonics, as well as arpeggios in harmonics. Isthat a two-dollar word? (Demonstrates use of harmonics in playing“Dance of the Golden Rod.”) The more you play harmonics, theeasier it is to play.Is that a tune you learned from a French harp player?

No, I made up “Dance of the Golden Rod.” “Goodbye MyBluebell” is the one I learned from French harp player PaulMcCormack.What do you think of Jerry Reed as a picker?

Let me quote Chet Atkins on him. Chet said, “You know, you’llget to thinking you’re a pretty good guitar picker, and then some-body like Jerry Reed will come into town and cut you to ribbons.”That’s what he said to me one night, when he called and said, “Iwant you to come over to the house and listen to Jerry Reed play.”I said, “Does he play pretty good?” And that’s what he told me.Jerry’s fantastic.Have you worked with Doc Watson since you played at Winfield, Kansasin 1976?

I worked with him in Santa Barbara, California. I’m not surewhen that was. I wish I had more time to be around Doc, becauseI was thrilled to death to meet him. When we made “Will The CircleBe Unbroken?” I walked in and recognized Doc and went over totalk to him. I’ve got a gold record over there of “Will The Circle BeUnbroken?” I’ve got six gold records upstairs. I hope WilliamMcEuen doesn’t read this, but I’ve got two copies of the album, andI’ve never listened to all of it, so I don’t know exactly what I said toDoc. But anyway, I walked back into the control room and EarlScruggs said, ‘Do you know they were recording you guys?’ I said,“What?” He said, “They had the tape running when you weretalking.” I walked over to the engineer and he said, “Ah, we mightnot use it.” And later somebody came up to me and asked me aboutthat conversation: “Was that real or a put-on?” So I’ll have to digthat out and listen to it sometime.

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It was great to hear the two of you together at Winfield.We laughed about that later. Three polar bears got up and left,

said, “I’m going back to the North Pole where it’s a little warmer.”Me and Doc Watson were sitting there just about to freeze. Remem-ber how cold it was? Stuart Mossman took me out to his guitarfactory while I was there and gave me that beautiful guitar there. It’sa shame that he’s not selling them on every street corner because it’sone of the finest guitars I’ve ever seen. They’re dandies.The best part of the performance to my ears was when the two of youwere trading off licks during “Milkcow Blues”. Then you started playingsome beautiful sock chord rhythm behind Doc which was a great surprise,because I’d never heard you play that style before.

I never really got to do the stuff that I wanted to do with theguitar on Capitol. I did one album in Nashville called “StrictlyGuitar” that I was very disappointed in. That album’s terrible. One,a very brilliant engineer in Hollywood twisted the knobs and that’scalled “The Merle Travis Guitar.” That one I’m not too ashamed of.The rest of the stuff sort of embarrasses me. Most people in thisbusiness have copies of everything they’ve ever recorded. I don’thave any of mine.

But Martin Haerle, president of CMH Records, has given me afree hand in the recordings I’m doing now. He’s said, ‘Whatever youwant to record, record it, and record it your way.’ I’ve recorded 30tunes with Joe Maphis. The album should be out any day. Thecover-picture was taken on a mountain top in New Mexico, withsnow-topped mountains in the background. So the scenery’s pretty,whether me and Joe are or not (laughs). The album with Joe is allinstrumental. (This was the set “Country Music Giants” (CMH-9017) referred to earlier.) And I have another album coming outwhere I do some songs (“The Merle Travis Story” (CMH-9018)). I’vere-recorded a bunch of the old tunes. Alex Brashear, who playedtrumpet with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, was on thatsession. Alex sent me a card saying ‘Thank you for having me onyour session.’ That’s the first time any musician has done that.Another former Playboy, Johnny Gimble, was on there, too. Hecalled the man who owns the record company and said, ‘Hey, whenare we going to do another session?’ We had a big time, you know.Steel guitarist Herb Remington was on there also. CurleyHollingsworth was the piano player, and two super pickers fromNashville, Buddy Harmon played drums and Billy Linneman playedbass.

The album with Maphis is done on electric guitars. On theother one I play some acoustic guitar. I did “I Am A Pilgrim” and“Bluebell,” “Re-Enlistment Blues” and a bunch of stuff on acoustic.How long does it take to make an album like that?

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When I worked with other record companies, they would say,“We’re going to do a session, and it will be three hours. We expectyou to do four tunes in three hours.” And most of the recordings I’vedone have been hurry up affairs, because we’d have three hours andthe union says that in that period we’re allowed to do four sides. Idon’t care if the image in Nashville is that they take it easy backthere. My foot, they don’t! When you listen to a playback and it’s atake, every musician will run to the telephone to call and see wherehis next session is. That’s all right, but it’s not easy-going. The onlyeasy-going recording I’ve ever done was with Hank Thompson, whoproduced his own records. He put up the money. His albums werefun to do. But outside of that, I’ve never enjoyed recording exceptfor some of the early stuff with the boys at Capitol, Cliffie Stone andLee Gillette.

But working with Martin Haerle at CMH has been enjoyable,because we were able to take our time. Human nature being what itis, when they told us “Take all the time in the world and do it the

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ravis)

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way you want it done,” me and Joe Maphis cut 30 tunes in about 21/2 days, which is unheard of. But that’s the way we wanted themto sound. When I went down to cut these vocals — “So Round, SoFirm, So Fully Packed,” “Sweet Temptation” and some of the otherold songs — I recorded 24 sides in two days, which you could neverbelieve could be done. But they suit me. "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed" — was that an expression beforeyou wrote the song?

That was the trademark for Lucky Strike cigarettes. Theysponsored a lot of radio shows and their slogan was “Buy LuckyStrikes. They’re so round, so firm, so fully packed.” Cliffie Stonecame to me and said, “Eddie Kirk’s been trying to write a song. He’sgot a great idea, he’s going to write a song, ‘So round, so firm, sofully packed, that’s my gal’.” I said, “Wait a minute, what’s thatcigarette company going to say?” He said, “They can’t copyrightthat.” He said, “Write a song.” So on the sheet music it says “byCliffie Stone, Eddie Kirk, and Merle Travis.”

Every songwriter in Nashville, including me, is waiting forsomebody to sneeze and they’ll write a song called Gesundheit!Fifteen of ‘em will have a song called Gesundheit! that they’repeddling the next day. I was with a music publisher, and I lived wayout past Madison in the suburbs of Nashville. There was a churchthat had a marquee, and they always had some sage saying on it. Ileft Nashville one day, I passed the church, and up there on themarquee it said “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”.‘Wow,’ I said, ‘what a great song title!’ Man, I went home and startedwriting last lines (laughs).

So I came up with a song called “Today Is The First Day Of TheRest Of Your Life.” And the next morning early I rushed down to mypublisher, Tree Publishing Company. I said, “I’ve got a terrific ideafor a song! It’s all written — here it is.” Now a lot of hillbillies livedout in that section besides me, and the guy said, “Yeah, about 15songs have come in this morning titled “Today Is The First Day OfThe Rest Of My Life,’” So after I fainted, I walked on out.Let me bring your career up to date. You moved to Nashville in 1966, andamong other things you were a scriptwriter for the Johnny Cash TVseries there. Then you moved back to the West Coast for a while, andthen came here to eastern Oklahoma.

That’s right.How have your audiences changed? You’ve played concerts all over theworld. I would guess that one difference would be that you were playinga lot of dances in the ’40s.

In the ’40s, yes. With the Tennessee Tomcats and the KnoxCounty Knockabouts, the first groups I played with, we played veryfew dances because we didn’t have amplified instruments. But from

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then on 'till after World War II, man, we wouldn’t think aboutplaying dances or honkytonks. Oh, no! That’s for the guy who can’tget a job on the radio. And I was always lucky enough to have a jobon the radio. I wasn’t used to that. But after the War, in order to eat,I learned that people liked to get together and dance and hearupbeat tunes that got tagged Western Swing. But I haven’t found aheck of a lot of difference in the reaction of the audiences at all.

The first date I ever played with Clayton McMichen, they werelined up for blocks to get into the biggest auditorium in Columbus,Ohio. They were lined up like that for two shows. It was a countryshow, with Clayton McMichen, the Delmore Brothers, CowboyCopas, Natchez the Indian and a few others. Working with ClaytonMcMichen, I’ve found that his pet gripe has become one of mine.And Mark, I want you to remember this.

A reporter would come up after the show and say, ‘Mr.McMichen, may I have an interview?’ ‘Why, sure.’ The reporterwould ask, ‘Why do you think country music is getting so popular?’And McMichen would hit the ceiling. “Because, by God, me and GidTanner and the Skillet-Lickers sold a million records of ‘CornLicker Still In Georgia’ is one reason. Another reason is that all overthe United States are hillbillies and country acts on radio, andpeople are listening to it. They sell a lot more overalls than they dotuxedos, and that’s another reason.” McMichen was Irish, and he’dget real mad.

Now maybe tomorrow I’ll go out and some fellow will come upand say, “Mr. Travis, may I have an interview?” “Yes.” And they’llask, “Why do you think country music has suddenly gotten sopopular?” And I’ll think back to 40 years ago when Clayton McMichengot so mad about that. There has never been a time when countrymusic was not popular. Today there are more people, more audito-riums, more places to play, and television, but it hasn’t become anymore popular. People still like to wear denims, checkered shirts,comfortable shoes, and listen to things that they don’t have to weara tuxedo to hear. Only stuffed shirts would do that. And even thefolks who go to the tuxedo concerts probably laugh about it whenthey get home, change their clothes and go down to the honky-tonkto hear Arkansas Joe & His Hog Scrapers.

One thing saddens me a little bit. A lot of people who claim tobe playing country music are really not. I don’t know what countrysome of that’s from. They’ll say, “I’m going to sing you a song,” andhere’s 25 fiddlers, four cello players, five bass players, 14 Frenchhorn players and a whole section of reeds. I don’t think that’scountry music. I don’t hardly believe that exists in any country.Would you have any words of advice for young musicians trying to startin the business?

I think I’d just say, keep pickin’, and if you have it, somebody’s

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going to discover it. You’re not going to wind up working down atthe corner shoe store if you have the talent of a Les Paul or a ChetAtkins or Barbara Mandrell or Larry Gatlin. I mention these twoyoung people because they’re very much on the scene today. I listento the old Sons of the Pioneers and I listen to the beautiful voice ofBob Nolan who sang so true and right on the key, and I wonder,‘Why aren’t there more singers like that around today?’ There are —Marty Robbins is one of them. Of course, he’s in between thegenerations. And now young Larry Gatlin — maybe he doesn’t singthe same songs, but he has the same voice control and can sing justas well as anybody. And Barbara Mandrell has all the spark, spunkand personality of a Cousin Emmy or Minnie Pearl or any of the old-timers had. So young people who look and say, “I wonder why LarryGatlin and Barbara Mandrell are doing so well?” — one reason isbecause they’re super-talented.In your song "Three Times Seven" you say, “I just won’t tame, I’m gonnabe the same till I’m three times 21.” Now that you are almost three times21, would you care to make any comments summing up your career?

I’m just about there! (laughs) I also wrote something that wasin a national magazine some time. I said that when I’m 90 years old(and) some young fellow is playing the Galaxy Theater on the planetMars, I hope I’m the old guy sitting back there watching the doorand listening to the show. That’s how much I love the business.

Our deepest thanks to Merlene and Cindy Travisfor making this project possible.

And to Archive Films, Wild Oak Pictures,The Country Music Foundation, Austin City Limits,

and William F. Cooke Televisionfor permission to use their material.

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MERLE TRAVISTHE VIDEO COLLECTION / RARE PERFORMANCES 1946-1981

1. NO VACANCYMerle Travis & His Bronco Busters and Betty Devere (Soundies, 1946)

2. NINE POUND HAMMERMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Snader Transcription, 1951)

3. MUS’RATMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Snader Transcription, 1951)

4. I’M A NATURAL BORN GAMBLIN’ MANMerle Travis & His Westerners: Merle Travis, electric Bigsby guitar andvocals; Eddie Kirk, guitar; Speedy West, steel guitar; Jack Rogers, bass;Harold Hensley, fiddle; Alex Brashear or Danny Auguire, trumpet; Hankand Dorothy Thompson, card players. (Snader Transcription, 1951)

5. TOO MUCH SUGAR FOR A DIMEMerle Travis & His Westerners. Vocal duet with Judy Hayden. Personnelsame as track #4. (Snader Transcription, 1951)

6. SPOONIN’ MOONMerle Travis & His Westerners. Vocal duet with Judy Hayden. Personnelsame as track #4 (Snader Transcription, 1951)

7. LOST JOHNMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Snader Transcription, 1951)

8. DARK AS A DUNGEONMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Snader Transcription, 1951)

9. PETTICOAT FEVERMerle Travis & His Westerners. Personnel same as track #4).(Snader Transcription, 1951)

10. SWEET TEMPTATIONMerle Travis & His Westerners. Personnel same as track #4).(Snader Transcription, 1951)

11. JOHN HENRYMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Snader Transcription, 1951)

12. I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMSMerle Travis, acoustic guitar (Ozark Jubilee, 1960)

13. MIDNIGHT SPECIALMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Porter Wagoner Show, 1968)

14. CANNONBALL RAGMerle Travis, acoustic guitar (Porter Wagoner Show, 1970)

15. I AM A PILGRIMMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Porter Wagoner Show, 1971)

16. SIXTEEN TONSMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Austin City Limits, 1977)

17, SMOKE, SMOKE THAT CIGARETTEMerle Travis, vocal and acoustic guitar (Austin City Limits, 1977)

18. BARBECUE RAGMerle Travis and Tom Bresh, acoustic guitars (Nashville Swing, 1981)

19. I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMSMerle Travis and Tom Bresh, acoustic guitars (Nashville Swing, 1981)

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DISCOGRAPHYThe Best Of Merle Travis Rhino R2 70993

The Merle Travis Story CMH 9018Merle Travis / Unreleased Radio Transcriptions 1944-1949

Country Routes RFD CD09Merle Travis Collection Bear Records

Photo by David Gahr

35

THE GUITAR OF

MERLE TRAVISTaught by Marcel Dadi

The guitar playing ofMerle Travis has been agreat influence on genera-tions of guitarists. His play-ing combined blues, jazzragtime and country musicinto a unique style that de-fined “Country FingerstyleGuitar” and has become thestandard for guitarists ofyesterday and today. Hisplaying featured an alter-nating bass technique witha strong melodic sense anda sophisticated feel for com-plex chord voicings.

In this unique videolesson Marce l Dad iteaches seven of Merle'sgreatest instrumentals: FULLER'S BLUES, CANE BREAK

BLUES, BLUE BELLS, SATURDAY NIGHT SHUFFLE, MEM-PHIS BLUES, CANNON BALL RAG and WALKIN' THE

STRINGS. Also featured are five performances byMerle Travis from 1951 of NINE POUND HAMMER,LOST JOHN, JOHN HENRY, MUS'RAT and TOO MUCH

SUGAR FOR A DIME. All the tunes are transcribed ina 60 page tab/music booklet which is includedFREE.

“My first knowledge of Marcel Dadi came around1973. Here was a guitarist who had figured outwhat it was all about.” - Chet Atkins

GW VIDEO 918 $39.95

To order or to receive a free 64 page catalog, write:STEFAN GROSSMAN'S GUITAR WORKSHOP

PO BOX 802, SPARTA, NJ 07871

Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140® 2001 Vestapol Productions / A division ofStefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop Inc.

VESTAPOL 13012

“Merle Travis could write you a hit song and sing it; he could draw you acartoon; he could play you a great guitar solo; or he could fix your watch... I'dprobably be looking at the rear end of a mule if it weren't for Merle Travis... If youcan say there is a certain style to my way of playing, then you have to recognize itas the influence of the guitar pickin' of Merle Travis.” —CHET ATKINS

This video captures 35 years of rare film and television perfor-mances by one of the all-time great American musicians. The music andguitar playing of Merle Travis has been a seminal influence on theAmerican musical scene. There is not a fingerstyle guitarist whose playinghas not been touched by Merle's style and technique. He wrote over 900songs and some such as Sixteen Tons and Dark As A Dungeon are so familiarthat today, they are thought of as "folk songs."

A 36 page booklet is included with this video featuring an interviewand biographical essay as well as many rare photographs of Merle Travis.

TITLES INCLUDE: 1. NO VACANCY, 1946 • 2. NINE POUND HAMMER, 19513. MUS'RAT, 1951 • 4. I'M A NATURAL BORN GAMBLIN' MAN, 1951

5. TOO MUCH SUGAR FOR A DIME, 1951 • 6. SPOONIN' MOON, 19517. LOST JOHN, 1951 • 8. DARK AS A DUNGEON, 1951 • 9. PETTICOAT FEVER,1951 • 10. SWEET TEMPTATION, 1951 • 11. JOHN HENRY, 1951 • 12. I'LL SEE

YOU IN MY DREAMS, 1960 • 13. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, 1968 • 14. CANNONBALL

RAG, 1970 • 15. I AM A PILGRIM, 1971 • 16. SIXTEEN TONS, 197717, SMOKE, SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE, 1977 • 18. BARBECUE RAG, 1981

19. I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, 1981Back Photograph by David Gahr • Duplicated in SP Mode/Real Time Duplication

Running Time: 60 minutes • Color and B&W

0 1 1 6 7 1 30129 7

ISBN: 1-57940-902-4