Slide Guitar Summit
Aquinnah
Throughout the past half-century of recorded music, the idea of “more is better” has been explored. A few examples:
• San Francisco’s Grateful Dead had two drummers.
• In the South, the Allman Brothers Band had two lead guitarists as well as dual drummers; Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Outlaws both began with twin lead guitars and later expanded to three.
• In 1970, a country album with the self-explanatory title of “Twin Steel Guitars of Kayton Roberts & Little Roy Wiggins” was released.
• 2002 saw the self-titled debut by blues-rockers Delta Moon, whose lineup features two slide guitars.
• And now, “guitarist’s guitarist” Arlen Roth proves you can’t have too much of a good thing with “Slide Guitar Summit.” Aided by drummer/producer extraordinaire Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, George Thorogood), Roth and nine guest sliders duet on 14 tracks, six of them instrumental. Twelve songs are covers.
The fan-funded project began in 2013, when the late Johnny Winter lent his talents to a cover of 1951’s “Rocket 88” (one of two songs sung by Roth; the other is “Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia,” featuring Greg Martin of the Kentucky Headhunters).
There’s no Ry Cooder, Derek Trucks or Luther Dickinson, but David Lindley obliges with “Her Mind Is Gone” — a 1950 gem by Professor Longhair, and the album’s sole live performance.
Sonny Landreth appears on his namesake “Sonny Skies,” an instrumental composed by Roth. Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” gets a workout with help from Lee Roy Parnell, who previously used the song in an instructional video called “The Art of Slide Guitar.”
“Stranger on the Shore,” a transcontinental No. 1 instrumental for clarinetist Acker Bilk in the early ’60s, is given the twin-lap-steel treatment via Asleep at the Wheel veteran Cindy Cashdollar.
Jimmy Vivino (Al Kooper, Max Weinberg) guests on two cuts comprising the album’s “just two unplugged guitars” portion: Laura Nyro’s “And When I Die” and the traditional “Poor Boy Blues.”
Rounding out the roster are session great Rick Vito on two instrumentals — the Roth original “Paradise Blues” and a commanding interpretation of Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me” — and Jack Pearson (ABB/Gregg Allman), who contributes his own “Do What’s Right.”
Tracks
1. Do What’s Right (w/Jack Pearson)
2. Dust My Broom (w/Lee Roy Parnell)
3. Stranger on the Shore (w/Cindy Cashdollar)
4. Sonny Skies (w/Sonny Landreth)
5. Rocket 88 (w/Johnny Winter)
6. Dixie Chicken (w/Lee Roy Parnell)
7. Poor Boy Blues (w/Jimmy Vivino)
8. And When I Die (w/Jimmy Vivino)
9. Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia (w/Greg Martin)
10. Paradise Blues (w/Rick Vito)
11. Steel Guitar Rag (w/Cindy Cashdollar)
12. You Really Got A Hold on Me (w/Rick Vito)
13. Her Mind Is Gone (w/David Lindley)
14. Amazing Grace (w/Greg Martin)
Total time: 1:03:41
External links
artist’s site
amazon.com
iTunes Store
