Riley Puckett (1894 to 1946) was the guitarist and lead singer of Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, whose first record sold 207,000 copies in 1926. Blind from infancy, he made his radio debut in 1922 and cut more than 200 records between 1924 and the early 1940s. His bass runs gave later bluegrass guitarists their first model.
Why Puckett matters
Puckett played guitar like a bass player and a guitarist at once. He walked from chord to chord with runs on the low strings, and he let the strum drop away when the run mattered more. Bluegrass rhythm guitar grew out of that idea. The run that became Lester Flatt’s G run shows up in Puckett’s records a decade before Flatt made it famous.
Life and career
Puckett was born on May 7, 1894, near Alpharetta, Georgia. A treatment applied to his eyes soon after birth left him blind. He attended the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon, where he learned braille and piano, and he taught himself banjo and guitar as a teenager.
He made his radio debut on WSB in Atlanta on September 18, 1922, with the Home Town Boys. On March 7 and 8, 1924, he and fiddler Gid Tanner recorded for Columbia in New York. They were the first country artists to record for that label. At those sessions Puckett cut Rock All Our Babies to Sleep, which historians count as the first yodel on a country record, three years before Jimmie Rodgers.
In 1926 he became a charter member of Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers with Tanner and fiddler Clayton McMichen. The band’s first release sold 207,000 copies. Puckett recorded about 150 sides with the group through its last sessions in San Antonio in 1934. He kept making solo records into the early 1940s. Newspaper writers called him the Bald Mountain Caruso for his big, smooth voice.
Puckett died on July 13, 1946, in East Point, Georgia. A neglected boil on his neck turned into blood poisoning. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 1986.
Playing style
Puckett’s right hand is still a puzzle. People who saw him gave different accounts: some said he used a thumbpick and fingerpicks, and bandmates recalled a single fingerpick on his index finger. Listeners who have studied the records think he used one fingerpick and a raised bass tuning borrowed from the banjo, with the low string tuned up to G.
Whatever he used, the sound is clear. He hit beats one and three hard and played two and four soft, and he skipped the strum on many beats and played bass notes alone. His runs moved in quarter notes and did two jobs at once: they kept time and they decorated the tune. On a Skillet Lickers record the fiddles carry the melody, and Puckett’s bass line rolls under them like a second lead.
Influences and legacy
Puckett learned banjo before guitar, and his tuning and thumb-heavy attack came from that. His voice drew comparisons to opera singers. Fiddlers Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen were his main partners. His guitar style reached Jimmie Rodgers, Lester Flatt, Doc Watson, and Norman Blake. Guitarists in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s copied his runs from the old 78s.
Signature tunes and songs
Rock All Our Babies to Sleep Nobody’s Business Ragged but Right Hand Me Down My Walking Cane Bully of the Town The Old Gray Mare.
Essential recordings
Country Music Pioneer (JSP, 2011)
Awards and honors
Georgia Music Hall of Fame (1986)
Watch and listen
This is Puckett’s own recording of Nobody’s Business. Listen for the bass runs between the vocal lines.
Jeremy Stephens shows how Puckett’s runs work on a modern guitar.
What to learn from Puckett
Learn Nobody’s Business. It is a three-chord song at a walking tempo, and Puckett’s runs fill every gap. The technique to steal is the bass run that drops the strum. Play the chord change with bass notes only, one per beat, and let the chord itself stay silent for a bar. Then bring the strum back. Puckett did this on every record, and it makes a plain rhythm part sound like two players.
Sources
Riley Puckett, New Georgia Encyclopedia American composers and musicians from A to Z: Puckett, Riley, Library of Congress NLS Music Notes Learn the guitar style of Riley Puckett, Acoustic Guitar The truth about the Lester Flatt G run, Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association Riley Puckett, AllMusic Riley Puckett, Wikipedia
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more early guitarists. Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen were his bandmates in the Skillet Lickers. Lester Flatt and Doc Watson carried his runs into bluegrass.