Early blues players.

[Chase Brady]

I do a fair amount of acoustic blues on the lap steel. But it occurs to me that I should probably know a lot more than I do about the history of lap steel blues. I kind of assumed that blues artists discovered the lap steel early on, but I honestly don't know their names. Who were the early players?

[Rich Ertelt]

On lapsteel, playing blues? Not many that I can think of

Freddie Roulette
L.C. "Good Rockin'" Robinson
Hop Wilson

Dobro on lap (probably Nationals, actually)
Black Ace
Oscar Woods

That is all I can think of. LOTS of slide on acoustic and electric playing regular guitar position.

[Michael Lee Allen]

Add...
Kokomo Arnold
Casey Bill Weldon
Cliff Carlisle
Floyd Smith
Chuck Berry (yes, THAT Chuck Berry, several instrumentals and steel backing the vocal "Run Around")
Sonny Rhodes
Gene Phillips (a few steel instrumentals)
Rev A Johnson
Rev Lonnie Farris
and plenty of players who did some numbers lap/knife-style lap such as Frank Hutchison, Bukka White, and Blind Willie Johnson. Dozens of players who did one or two "lap pieces".
MLA

[Dave Mudgett]

It is generally believed that Blind Willie Johnson (e.g., Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground) at least sometimes played in lap position with a knife. As far as I know, the only authenticated photo of him shows him playing in standard guitar position. Nonetheless, I have always considered him both a slide and steel guitarist, and an early influential one at that. Not saying it's impossible to play in guitar position with a knife, but you basically lose your ability to do normal fretting, and at that point, what's the difference between holding the guitar horizontally and vertically? Or in a slanted semi-lap, semi-regular position? I've seen guys do the latter. I also note the purity of the sound with a bar or knife and the strings way off the fretboard.

I also think the distance between early blues steel and blues slide guitar is pretty small. And I believe that there were essentially unknown blues players who played in the steel guitar position. This kind of music was really not heavily documented in its early days. A guy I ran into in Ohio, early 70s, suggested I put my Yamaha acoustic on my lap with a knife or metal slide/bar to get a more pure tone. I can't even remember the guy's name, not that it matters. Just a player who was passing through Yellow Springs, Ohio back then and saw me playing on the street. He showed me some stuff and down the road he was a day or two later. I think more people mixed approaches than is realized. Anyway, I channel both blues lap and slide playing, regardless of whether I'm playing blues on my lap or in Spanish guitar position.

Edit - Michael, glad to see you posting on this while I was typing. I think you probably know more about this topic than anybody I can think of.

[Glenn Wilde]

Add Sol Hoopii in here, while he was a true Hawaiian player, he blended in a ton of blues and jazz. You will get some tasty licks from him.
https://youtu.be/dYg1Vtzwyyk?si=0au8EOLYyzmzKj7T

[Tim Toberer]

This is one of my favorite subjects! I feel there must have been a lot of people who played in this style given the popularity of Hawaiian music, just not many who made it on record. I don't have any to add except a cool picture I found a couple days ago.

[Michael Lee Allen]

Thanks for "the vote of confidence", Dave...

As to playing "knife-style" in the "upright" or "guitar" position it does work but is limited. You can see it done on YouTube, two versions of the traditional "Jack O' Diamonds". One is from an Arhoolie Records film with Mance Lipscomb, the other is Lum Guffin at the 1969 Memphis blues festival. I've seen a number of players, both black and white, playing a piece or two like this when I lived in the mid-south. It was not as common as the lap style though.

As to differences between lap and "bottleneck"' styles I don't see much. A simple blues tune can go any whichaway. Knife style upright, knife-style lap, bottleneck, lap steel, whatever you have or want to use. Using (l-t-h) DADF#AD or DADFAD for everything on "standard" guitar it doesn't matter to me, even a full-depth arch-top can lay on my lap and be fretted and "slid" from above. No need to switch instruments. Now for more sophisticated music you'll have to forget the folksy approach, sloppy attack, and the knife or glass slide.

Had some stuff I'd loaned out returned last night and didn't put it away yet which is why I started this reply. One is a book titled "Blacks, Whites, and Blues" by Tony Russell, published by Stein & Day in 1970. A number of slide players are mentioned and pictured although the book's main purpose is to show how much interaction there was between black and white musicians prior to WWII. It's old and long out of print but copies show up on eBay and some libraries have it.

And two accessible and low priced 4-CD sets that may be interesting...
Bottleneck Guitar, Selected Sides 1926-2015...JSP 77211 (although I don't think too much of the fourth disc's newer choices)
and...
Blind Willie Johnson and the Guitar Evangelists...JSP 7737

IF I had most of my record and CD collection here, and the pre-war blues discographies, I could spend an entire day typing out all the one or two slide pieces played by guys who weren't known for that style.

MLA

[Jack Hanson]

Uncertain whether it's been documented or not, but lots of the immortal Charley Patton's repertoire can just as easily be played overhand as underhand. The only known photograph of Patton clearly shows him playing overhand, albeit without a tonebar.

[Rich Ertelt]

Thanks for "the vote of confidence", Dave...

As to playing "knife-style" in the "upright" or "guitar" position it does work but is limited. You can see it done on YouTube, two versions of the traditional "Jack O' Diamonds". One is from an Arhoolie Records film with Mance Lipscomb,

Yea, I saw Mance in '72, he played normal guitar position and used the jack knife

[Jack Hanson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyIquE0izAg

[Glenn Wilde]

https://youtu.be/PZSLbw_mtOc?feature=shared

[Rich Ertelt]

Lot's of guys probably did both -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0jRX69mxcE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ptrcBDeiLk

[Glenn Wilde]

Oscar" Buddy" Woods with a Style 3 Tricone, he's one of my favorite blues guys ever.

Screenshot_20250522-175955~2.png

[Chase Brady]

Thanks for the responses! Lots of folks to check out.

[Michael Lee Allen]

Follow-ups...
Both Kokomo Arnold and Casey Bill Weldon have several single CDs reissuing their stuff. There's also a double CD set on each of them.
Multiple CDs of Cliff Carlisle as well as two four disc sets.
Chuck Berry, the tunes to look for are Blues For Hawaiians, Deep Feeling, Mad Lad, and the above mentioned (I Won't Let You) Run Around
Gene Phillips original LPs on Modern and Crown, almost everything he did has been reissued on ACE (UK) CDs, keep in mind he played mainly standard guitar with only a few steel instrumentals
Darby and Tarleton, original 78s reissued on LP and CD
Jimmie Tarleton solo 1960s "rediscovery" LP on Testament reissued on CD
Howard & Dorsey, The Dixon Brothers, original 78s reissued on LP and CD
Reverend A Johnson is on The Guitar Evangelists CD set mentioned above
There are a couple of live YouTube concert videos of Tom Rush playing Galveston Flood knife-style on his lap with good close-ups
MLA