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Contemplating American Primative Guitar
Our correspondent Ragged Bo investigated the mind-shattering paradoxes of the music they say doesn’t even exist, submitted a half-finished article, and apparently went off to meditate about the meaning of it all. This is all we got now but over to the right you can hear some music. We are a poor volunteer organization and so must put up with the likes of Ragged Bo, but we try pretty hard not to judge him and so should everybody.
Don’t fret yourself if a genre of music named ‘American Primitive Guitar’ doesn’t ring a bell. The truth is that almost nobody’s heard of it.
In fact, lots of the people who practice this method of guitarism would draw a blank at the name, including but not limited to the author of this article himself!
By Ragged Bo Kaintock
I wanted to know about the conspiracy theory that C.F. Martin was a Lutheran agent provocateur planted in the U.S. by Kaiser Wilhelm, and his mission was to prepare the way for the American Catholic ‘Guitar Mass,’ with the long-term goal of destabilizing the Vatican. But apparently Ragged Bo never got to ask this question.
American Primitive Guitar may be nothing more than a flimsy conceptual umbrella for academics and critics to get wet under after drinking too much Pabst, but that’s what makes it fun. What few people would argue is that it is a full and embracing sound that creates an atmosphere of welcome and openness.
‘American Primitive Guitar’ can be booked as foreground entertainment, background music, interactive group events, private and group lessons, private parties and educational musical presentations suitable for all tastes and educational backgrounds.
In other words, the guitarist-author can play the music and tell you all about it, or he could just play and let the music speak for itself.
“Many people have continued to play in the style of American Primitive Guitar for many years — some even long after they are dead [*] — without even ever knowing what to call it,” attests Martin Ballard, who added quite emphatically that he considers this to be ‘very sad indeed,’ and, I intend to be one of them.’
This made no sense, so I asked, “You intend to keep on playing this guitar style after you are dead?”
I don’t think this was a rude question, do you? I didn’t mean to be rude. I just wanted to understand.
“Yes, indeed, but I will at least know what to call it when people—”
“What people? I thought this whole scenario was about you being dead! Who is going to hear this music after you are dead? Other dead people? Or—”
“You don’t have any imagination!”
It wasn’t Ballard who said this. The voice in fact was female and it rang all around us as if in sensurround. Tonally it was just a few miles northeast of Lucinda Williams. Here it came again: “Neither one of you bloody fools have the imagination of a bleached cow skull on a patch of burned prairie.”
“Who WAS that?” I screamed from under the table where I cowered in fetal position.
“Willa Cather, insofar as I can make out,” Ballard said, lighting one of the noxious cheroots he discovered in a sealed chest at the bottom of the Los Angeles River. “But sometimes it’s more Kate Chopin.”
