Eddie “One String” Jones was discovered on LA’s Skid Row in 1960, carrying a 2×4 plank, with a single broom wire stretched along it, and a tin can mounted over one end. Although discovered isn’t strictly true. He had, in fact, approached folklorist Frederick Usher himself, and spanked his ‘diddley bow’ (or three-quarter banjo) by sliding a half-pint bottle along the wire with his left hand, striking the wire near the tin can with a whittled stick in his right, demonstrating “the onliest music that can’t be captured by six strings”. Released at a time when musicologists were desperate to order and classify the sub-genres of African-American music, One String Blues ending up in the ‘ethnic musics’ section of public libraries, and its potential audience of stoners, goof-offs and garage freaks really missed out, because “One String”’s sound is weird: droney grooves and minimalist beauty accompanied by Jones’s gabber-patter which sounds literally out-of-this-world. Accompanied by the more straightforward melancholy blues of South Carolina harmonica man, Edward Hazelton, One String Blues is a masterclass in moon-touched authentic madness. (Andrew Male)
Eddie “One String” Jones/Eddie Hazelton – One String Blues (Takoma, 1968/recorded 1960)
