Biography of Merle Travis

As a guitarist and songwriter, Travis is unsurpassed in the business; he's one of the few to have an instrumental style named after him -- "Travis picking" -- putting him in the elite company of Earl Scruggs and the Carter Family. Travis learned his distinctive 3-finger-style guitar from fellow Kentuckians Mose Rager and Ike Everly (father of Phil and Don), and he transferred the banjo roll to the guitar. Travis style uses the thumb to play the bottom notes of a chord individually, while playing the melody on the higher strings with the index finger and occasionally the third finger. The result is a constant motion and flow of the lower notes, while the melody floats on the top. The influence of this style can't be overstated: super-picker Chet Atkins has acknowledged his debt to Travis.Before the war, Travis was a member of two important bands: The Georgia Wildcats and the influential Browns Ferry Four, with Grandpa Jones and the Delmore brothers, Alton And Rabon. After his discharge from the Marine Corps, he had numerous hits, self-written or with others, including "Divorce Me C.O.D.," "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed," "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette," "Dark as a Dungeon," and "Sweet Temptation." In 1947 he wrote and recorded "Sixteen Tons" and watched Tennessee Ernie Ford eight years later make it perhaps the blockbuster hit in the history of country music. Country music is so much richer thanks to multi-talented Merle Travis. ~ David Vinopal