The Power of the Thumb

I began my musician's journey in Maine while attending Colby College, home to a diverse and thriving musical scene. I found my first and best teacher there in Carl "Doctor" Dimow; a soft spoken flutist and guitar picker with an encouraging style, a great sense of humor, and the patience of a saint. He unveiled the wonders of finger picking to me and, more pertinently, country blues guitar. This music, most often made on old, beat up flat top guitars, is litterally driven by the thumb of the right hand. It spoke to me as no other musical expression had before or has since.

The folks in the picture are Steve James and Del Rey. They are, in my humble estimation, two of the giants of the contemporary acoustic scene. My wife took this shot at our home the day after Steve and Del performed at one of my Masters of Acoustic Blues Concert Series (MoABCs). In addition to Steve and Del, the series has brought Catfish Keith, Paul Rishel and Annie Raines, Paul Geremia, Otis Taylor and others to the bustling musical burg of Floyd, Virginia. The concerts have never generated a crowd of more than forty (blues is a hard row to hoe here in old-time and bluegrass land), but those who attend talk about the show for days and weeks afterward. The series has two bonuses that I personally enjoy. First, the concert series has a companion workshop series at my music store, the Pickin' Porch, where many of my intermediate guitar students get some first class instruction and feedback on their playing. Second, the artists often stay at our home which has left me with many indellible memories.

Something Steve said to me during his visit has stuck with me, "I'm always telling folks that every thing will be better once they can make their thumb go back and forth (ie: count to four)." Steve referred to the alternating bass style of fingerpicking guitar championed by folks like Mississippi John Hurt and Etta Baker His statement still resonates with me. I vividly recall the way I felt the first time I played my first tune, "Oh Papa." As my right hand thumb alternated between the sixth and fourth string and my left hand switched from G to D7, the skies cleared, planets aligned, men wept, birds sang, and suddenly it didn't matter (as much), that Ronald Reagan was president. It was a golden and magical moment in my life. I still feel its residual thrill every time I pick up my guitar to play a Sam Mcgee or Frank Stokes song and count fours while my thumb wags back and forth.