Bo Carter

Bo Carter (1892-1964) - born Armenter Chapman, Bo Carter is one of the least appreciated of the pre-war country bluesmen. For one thing, his amazing guitar playing and singing skills are often overshadowed by the "dirty" nature of many of his tunes! His so-called "party tunes" were full of reference to sex and private parts. However, he recorded many other "normal" blues tunes that are less suggestive.

Carter often used a "G" tuning in which he tuned the 6th string to a D and the 5th string to a G - while leaving the other four strings in standard tuning. Listen to songs like Shake Em' On Down,

My Baby, and Arrangement For Me Blues to hear Carter playing in G-tuning. He also played in dropped-D and open D-tuning. Another unique feature of Carter's playing is the way he used his first, second, AND third fingers to pick out his melodies and runs. Carter basically assigned one of his three fingers to the G, B, and high E strings. Try this out! It's awkward at first, but it allowed Carter to play the way he did.

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