This will be my last regular Friday BIAAtG post here. My column will be posted weekly, Monday nights at Faster Than The World. Since my column here will be either a cross or supplemental post of what I'm doing at FTTW, the posts here are moving to Monday evening also (or Tuesday morning, depending on how late it is they get the post up). So, as this is my last Friday BIAAtG, I pose this doozy of a question to you: Where would American music be without the guitar?
It's the one instrument that drove our music to be different. Although it took jazz years to use the guitar as a primary instrument, blue was developing at the same time as jazz using the guitar as the only instrument.
The guitar was very influential in early Country and Western (hillbilly) music. Not really as an instrument to set melody, but as a rythmic instrument. There weren't any drums in the early C&W and the guitarists developed a strum-knock way of playing that was both rythmic and percussive.
Of course, the guitar truly came into its own with rock and roll. Would we even have rock and roll without the guitar? I think not.
So, compose your thoughts. Where do you think we'd be without the guitar? It's surely a place I wouldn't want to be.
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