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Chapter 11: Acoustic Roots: Delta Blues and Its Country Cousins
207
but at a supercharged pace and with a heavy backbeat (provided by a more
prominent drum sound) and often a heavy use of effects, such as reverb,
slap-back echo, and tremolo. (For more on effects, check out Chapter 18.)
Merle Travis was a rockabilly pioneer (along with Scotty Moore [Elvis’s first
guitarist] and James Burton [Elvis’s second guitarist]) who simplified and
adapted for rock ’n’ roll. Travis didn’t invent the alternating bass sound of
rockabilly, but he popularized his own hard-driving approach that featured a
I-V-I-V bass motif in an uptempo two-beat feel, and guitar players often call
any fingerpicking approach that uses an alternating bass Travis picking. Many
people call any alternate-bass approach Travis picking, while others use the
term only for the harder-driving, locomotive style. But Travis and his many
followers, including Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, Leo Kottke, and Jerry Reed,
have made this a staple sound in acoustic playing, and it works particularly
well in an upbeat blues setting.
Figure 11-10 shows an E progression in a rockabilly feel that uses bluesinflected
melodic bits.
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E7
A7
T
A
B
0
0 2
2 2
0 0
0 0
2
2 2
0 0
0
0
6
0
5
0
5
0 0
6
5
0
0
5
E7
B7
E7
Figure 11-10:
A rockabilly
progression
with a harddriving
alternating
bass.
0
0 2
2 2
0 0
0 2 0 2
1 1
2
2
0
0
0
4 3 2
5 4 3
1
2
2
0
0
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