Hello! This is Keni Lee Burgess...
Welcome to my world. As you can tell by watching my videos, I'm into Bottleneck Blues. Mostly the old school fingerpicking acoustic blues. For me, there is nothing better than the sound of a Resonator guitar. I love all the old Masters, Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell....the list goes on and on. I started to get into this style back in the early 1980's, when I was in the military living down South. You have no choice but to get into Country and Blues if you live down there. So, I started to soak it up. Actually, I first started to collect tapes. I wanted to listen to the first albums of groups or performers that I liked at the time. I purchased the first albums from Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Winter... just to name a few. It was then that I realized, the songs I liked best were Bottleneck Slide tunes.
So off I went to buy more music. I think it was Robert Johnson's slide work I got into first. Oh, how I wanted to play like him. He was too cool. I started hunting for a resonator guitar. Thru my reading, it was my understanding if you were going to play Bottleneck, what you really wanted was a National Steel guitar. I wrote a lot of letters to dealers all over the United States searching for a National. Finally, I bought one from Mandolin Brothers in New York. It was a 1931 National style O. It cost $1000 including the case and shipping. Remember this is the 80's.
When I received it, I was in love, but my roommate said, you spent a $1000 for that old piece of junk. I sold it a while back on ebay. I can't remember exactly what it went for, but it was about $2500. I have other guitars that are much better to play, so it was spend money and restore, or sell. Old Nationals are great, but a lifted neck with bad intonation is a nightmare. Secondly, because of the lifted neck, they don't ring correctly because the downward pressure from the strings on the cone is wrong. It's not straight down. If you want my advice, buy new. There are great Resonator guitar manufactures out there. Don Young at National Resophonic Guitars, Don Morrison of Donmo Guitars, Kurt Schoen of Schoen guitars.....the list goes on and on.
If you got to have a vintage National, and believe me I understand were you are coming from.....get ready to spend some cash. Don't let just anyone work on your baby. Talk to the present day manufactures for help. Do it right....you will be happy. I learned to play at first from instructional tapes. I want to thank Happy Traum and Stefan Grossman for their fine work. Later I met Woody Mann and attended his seminars in NYC. The best thing for me was the International Guitar Seminars held at Columbia University in NYC. Bob Brozman, Mike Dowling, Steve James....the list goes on and on, taught me some great stuff. In general I have to say, it was a great opportunity to learn from professional performing artists. They teach the real stuff. Currently, after three years in the making, I finished my first CD; "Good & Evil". It was released in December 2007 and is available for purchase on Ebay. Just search: Keni Lee. It is in the style of the videos on youtube, but with the help of 20 talented musicians, playing 15 different instruments, throughout 14 tracks, I hope it will sound fresh to listeners of Country Blues.
Take care and enjoy. Thanks for your support, Keni Lee
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