Arnold Shultz

Arnold Shultz (1886–1931) was an influential African-American fiddler and guitarist who is noted as a major influence in the development of the "thumb-style", or "Travis picking" method of playing guitar.^[1]

Biography

Shultz, the son of a former slave, was born into a family of touring musicians in Ohio County, Kentucky, in 1886.^[2] In 1900, Shultz began studying guitar under his uncle, developing a jazzy "thumb-style" method of playing guitar that eventually evolved into the Kentucky style for which such musicians as Chet Atkins and Merle Travis would be known.^[2] Professionally, Shultz was a laborer, traveling from Kentucky through Mississippi and New Orleans, working with coal or as a deck hand.^[3]

In the early 1920s he played fiddle in the otherwise white hillbilly and Dixieland band of Forest "Boots" Faught. To the occasional complaints such as "You've got a colored fiddle. We don't want that."; Schultz would reply, "I've got the man because he's a good musician"^[3] He also played with Charlie Monroe and gave Bill Monroe his opportunity to play his first paid gig, joining Shultz at square dances with Shultz on fiddle and Monroe on guitar.^[3][4]

Influence

Though he was not recorded, his blues playing made a powerful influence.^[3] Bill Monroe, who was formative in the development of bluegrass music, has openly cited Shultz as an influence on his playing,^[5] and Shultz taught his guitar methods to Kennedy Jones, who disseminated the "thumb-style" methods further.^[1] His methods were passed down further to Merle Travis and Ike Everly.^[3]

Schultz died in 1931 of a heart problem, a mitral lesion, though legends have persisted that he died as a result of poisoning by a white musician who was jealous of him.^[1][2] Less colorful reports indicate that he suffered a stroke while boarding a bus.^[6] Arnold Schultz died in Butler County, Kentucky, near the small city of Morgantown. He is buried in the town's only African American cemetery at the end of Bell Street.^{[citation needed]}

References

Sources

• Cantwell, Robert (2003). Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07117-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=gsDHolSxKuwC&pg=PA30&dq=Arnold+Shultz&client=firefox-a#PPA31,M1. 
• Smith, Richard D. (2000). Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-80381-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=MCsjalwUv3UC&pg=PA23&dq=Arnold+Shultz&client=firefox-a#PPA23,M1. 

External links

• Photo of Arnold Schultz (left) and Clarence Wilson (right).

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