Steel Guitar Rag (Sylvester Weaver / John Fahey)

Steel Guitar Rag was originally recorded in 1923 by Sylvester Weaver as "Guitar Rag". Weaver was an american blues guitar player and a pioneer of country blues. He often used the slide technique by taking a pocket knife instead of a common "bottleneck". "Guitar Rag" was usually played on a guitarbanjo and is one of the standards of early blues music.
In the 1930s Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys did a version of this song and gave it his final title "Steel Guitar Rag". In 1936 they had a hit with the song and it became a standard in country and western music, too.
Sylvester Weaver recorded until 1927 about 50 additional songs, some of them quite successful but then he retired. On April 4th 1960 Weaver died in Louisville, Kentucky at the age of 62. Though there had been a blues revival in the 50s he died almost forgotten. It took 32 years before Weavers legacy was honoured and released on two CD's.
Sylvester Weaver was one of Faheys early influences and as Weaver he played this song with a slide.

My version here is played without a slide in open D.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Steel
• Guitar
• Rag
• John
• Fahey
• Sylvester
• Weaver
• Fingerstyle
• Slide
• Cover
• Acoustic
• Blues
• Bottleneck
• Music