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James Sallis, Musician |
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In addition to writing prodigiously about music, Jim Sallis has through the years worked off and on as a professional musician with country, blues, old-time and bluegrass bands. He also taught stringed instruments and theory for many years. Trained on trumpet and French horn, he now plays guitar, mandolin, Dobro and Hawaiian guitar, fiddle, banjo, and harmonica. He recently had his pride and joy restored: a triple-neck 8-string National steel guitar from the Forties that he played in country bands back in Dallas years ago. He currently plays Dobro with bluegrass groups in Phoenix, regularly backs up country singer Shelba Mullins, does solo sets of acoustic blues, and is a founding member of Three-Legged Dog, a trio of instrumentalists playing old-time, bluegrass and old country. |
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Jim's band, Three-Legged Dog, performs frequently in the Phoenix area. Check their website for upcoming appearances and mp3 clips. Three-Legged Dog has also started recording its first CD.
Jim recently began accompanying Phoenix singer-songwriter Linda Bilque ("Emma," "Mother of Mexico," "Clara Moore") on Dobro, banjo and mandolin. |
WRITING ON MUSIC
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The Guitar Players: One Instrument and Its Masters in American Music (New York: William Morrow, 1982; Lincoln, Nebraska, and London: Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press, 1994, rev. ed.). A study of the parallel development of specifically American musical styles (country, blues, jazz, rock) and of the guitar as solo instrument, told through essays on guitarists such as Lonnie Johnson, Hank Garland, Mike Bloomfield, Riley Puckett, George Barnes, Lenny Breau. Originally published by William Morrow, it has been reissued by University of Nebraska Press. |
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Jazz Guitars: An Anthology (New York: William Morrow, 1984), edited by James Sallis. Following Guitar Players and also from Morrow, an anthology comprising reprints and specially-commissioned pieces, all of them written by working musicians. |
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The Guitar in Jazz (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), edited by James Sallis. Began as an updating of Jazz Guitars for University of Nebraska Press but turned into a new book. It's a gorgeous volume, flagship launch for a new series on jazz and blues. |
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Dozens of music reviews and feature articles in Frets, Pickin', Bluegrass Unlimited, Texas Jazz, Mugwumps, Steel Guitarist, and many others. |
Jim has also written many essays about music. He says,
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"Gone So Long"
is about growing up in rural Arkansas listening to
black music and becoming a writer. Helena, Arkansas, my hometown,
was in the forties an essential blues town. Everyone passed through:
Roosevelt Sykes, Son House, Skip James. Robert Johnson lived there a
while. Sonny Boy Williamson was still there, and playing daily over
radio station KFFA.
"Mr. Johnson's Blues," on the amazing Lonnie
Johnson, is a chapter from my book The Guitar Players.
A piece on my year or so of playing country-music clubs in downtown Dallas, "Taking the Stage," is included in my essay collection Gently into the Land of the Meateaters, as is "Demons and Mr. Cinq-Mars," which depicts the influence my band leader had on me — his example of the creative life as much as anything else. |
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