NICK LUCAS - Teasing the Frets (1922)

NICK LUCAS - Teasing the Frets (1922)

Nick Lucas - Guitar

Phil Boutelje - Piano

Recorded July, 1922

(Pathe Actuelle Record # 020794)

Born Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese on August 22, 1897, the son of an Italian gardener, in Belleville, New Jersey. Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese later changed his name legally to Nick Lucas. At an early age he learned how to play the guitar, mandolin and banjo.

His recording career spanned from test cylinders for Thomas Edison in 1912 to the stereophonic age in 1980, with total disc sales in excess of 80 million copies. It is doubtful that anyone in popular music had a longer recording career, one that spanned seven decades.

It is important to remember that, though the height of his popularity came in the late 1920's, Nick Lucas' style was set by the time he moved to Chicago in 1922. Before electrical recording, before Louis Armstrong ever found his way into a recording studio, Nick Lucas had found his voice, and used it in much the same way for sixty years.

In the early days Nick's forte was as an instrumentalist. That would change, Lucas would become one of the first popular crooners on the radio. He is actually credited as creating the "intimate style" of entertaining after beginning his vaudeville career accompanying himself with his guitar. His was the first custom-made guitar and even today one of the best selling type picks bears Nick Lucas' name.

In 1924 Frank Campbell, who was general sales manager for Gibson was looking for an endorsement by a well-known star to push an expensive guitar. Nick Lucas, who had the first guitar instrumental hit record in 1922, [Picking The Guitar/Teasing The Frets (Pathe Actuelle 020794)] was an obvious choice, since he was already playing a Gibson L-5.
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Nick
• Lucas
• Teasing
• the
• Frets
• 1922
• Gibson

[pnomis]

This is a great track by Nick Lucas. As far as Lonnie Johnson is concerned, the stuff he recorded with Eddie lang is simply wonderful. No need to compare. Comparisons are odious and guitar playing is not a competitive sport. However, pieces such as 'to do this you have to know how' are not 'boring, drab 12 bars'. They are virtually unplayable by any other guitarist and rank alonside Django as some of the most exciting guitar playing ever recorded. That's my opinion...

[ramonshaw921]

This video is popular on Damascus

[thatsthesameoldshit]

@cblanch - There are opinions then there are facts. Lonnie Johnson’s first recordings were fiddle not guitar. The first recorded guitar solos were Nick Lucas’s. Better or worse is opinion, fact is both were great musicians, and just because Johnson was "coloured" shouldn't mean a thing & obviously it didn’t to Johnson because he said he, “lived a beautiful life”. Listen to the CD, Lonnie Johnson “The Complete Folkways Recordings” (Smithsonian Folkways SF-40067) tracks 23 & 24.

[cblanch]

@thatsthesameoldshit The world'd be a boring place if everybody thought the same way and had the same tastes and preferences... clearly yours are different to mine...what we both have in common is a love of music and that transcends any minor differences and enriches both our lives in a way most people will never be lucky enough to experience. There are only 2 kinds of music, good and bad, and good music didn't stop when amplification arrived; it's still very much alive...Have a great 2012...

[thatsthesameoldshit]

@cblanch - I've heard, & have, most all of Johnson's recordings & many black artists of the 1920s and 1930s & they are not very impressive when compared to their white counterparts of the day. Lonnie & other black guitarists were pedestrian when it came to chord progressions and could never match Eddie Lang, Carl Kress, Nick Lucas, etc. Johnson played mainly boring, drab 12 bar blues. It's also a plus in favor of Mr. Lucas that he never switched over to electric guitar, as did Johnson.

[vincenz55]

when django was in diapers