HANK WILLIAMS LEAD GUITAR

www.last.fm/music/Hank+Williams/_/Mind+Your+Own+Business?autostart

Although Hank Williams's records are more known for the great steel playing by Don Helms, there's excellent guitar playing on some cuts. I'm still investigating who played on what, but the intro on "Mind Your Own Business" may be Bob McNett. It's a perfect example of how fifties country guitar often blended the muted/staccato kind of playing with western swing type ideas. The muted/staccato approach eventually led to chicken pickin' and what we know think of as twang, but it's interesting that before the sixties revolution with Burton, Don Rich, et al, twang and swing often went hand in hand. (Roy Nichols was the rare Burton-influenced picker to keep the swing elements in, probably because he spent much of his youth learning Eldon Shamblin licks from Bob Wills records, and brought the Burton stuff into his playing after he'd played professionally for a while.)
In my transcription, I've taken the lazy option and not indicated all the muting stuff-- it's a pain in the ass to put it in, and a pain to read as well. I suggest using the transcription to get the notes and rhythms, and then listening to the recording to get the phrasing nuances.

This intro is a typical four bar "5511," and as these often do it begins with a pickup measure. (Because my notation program considers a pickup bar to be a numbered bar, when I refer to bar numbers I'll include the pickup bar as bar one, although I don't think of it that way-- for me this is a four bar intro, which the soloist begins before beat one. This is incidentally what I try to do when I play intros, or enter for a solo, because it adds excitement. I've heard this approach used on countless country records, and it was a favorite technique of Charlie Parker and many other jazz players.) It uses a couple versions of the #2/3 kind of lick, which was one of the basic idioms fifties country pickers used for the country version of a "bluesy" feeling. Bar two alternates between #2 and 3 on a B7 chord. Bar three has a grace note slide from #2 to 3, over an E chord.
The intro also has a tricky "guitaristic" challenge, the kind that country pickers always seem to throw in with relaxed ease. The third and fourth bars cover more than two octaves, going from a high B on the high E string way down to a G# on the low E string. The line begins more or less as an arpeggio, including the root, third, and fifth of the triad plus the sixth as well. By the end it's become a boogie-type lick. This boogie kind of idea is a staple of fifties country guitar, and fit in well on Hank tunes with a bluesy flavor. (Incidentally, for you advanced players, all of this could have been played in fourth position, but I chose to use open position for a lot of it to take advantage of open strings. More to the point, it sounds twangier that way.)
Lastly, I'm guessing McNett played a Gibson, or something in that vein. Beats me what he played, frankly-- it doesn't sound like a Tele, but it does sound great!