Joe Maphis
Encyclopedia
Suffolk, Virginia
Suffolk is the largest city by area in Virginia, United States, and is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 84,585. Its median household income was $57,546.-History:...
– died June 27, 1986), was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
. He married singer Rose Lee Maphis in 1948.
One of the flashiest country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s, Joe Maphis was known as The King of the Strings. He was able to play many stringed instruments with great facility. However, he specialized in dazzling guitar virtuosity. Working out of Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
, he rose to prominence with his own hits such as "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)" as well as playing with acts like Johnny Burnette
Johnny Burnette
John Joseph "Johnny" Burnette was an American rockabilly musician. Along with his older brother Dorsey Burnette, and also a friend named Paul Burlison, Burnette was a founding member of The Rock and Roll Trio. He was the father of 1980s rockabilly singer Rocky Burnette.-Early life:Johnny Burnette...
, Doyle Holly
Doyle Holly
Doyle Floyd Hendricks, known by the stage name Doyle Holly was an American musician best known as the bass guitar player of the country music band Buck Owens and the Buckaroos and for his solo hit songs "Queen Of The Silver Dollar" and "Lila". Holly's contributions on bass guitar and rhythm guitar...
, The Collins Kids
The Collins Kids
The Collins Kids are an American rockabilly duo featuring siblings Lawrencine "Lorrie" Collins and her younger brother Lawrence "Larry" Collins . Their hits in the 1950s as youngsters, such as "Hop, Skip and Jump", "Beetle Bug Bop" and "Hoy Hoy", were geared towards children, but their infectious...
, Wanda Jackson
Wanda Jackson
Wanda Lavonne Jackson is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist who had success in the mid-1950s and 60s as one of the first popular female rockabilly singers and a pioneering rock and roll artist...
, Rose Maddox
Rose Maddox
Roselea Maddox , better known as Rose Maddox, was an American country singer-songwriter and fiddle player.Born in Boaz, Alabama, Maddox was the singer in the Maddox Brothers and Rose....
and Ricky Nelson
Ricky Nelson
Eric Hilliard Nelson , better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor...
. His playing was an influence on such greats as Merle Travis
Merle Travis
Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and musician born in Rosewood, Kentucky. His lyrics often discussed the life and exploitation of coal miners. Among his many well-known songs are "Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues" and "Dark as a Dungeon"...
, Jimmy Bryant
Jimmy Bryant
Jimmy Bryant was a prominent American session guitarist. He was billed as "The Fastest Guitar in the Country".-Biography:Ivy J. Bryant, Jr. was born in Moultrie, Georgia, the oldest of 12 children...
and Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...
. He was known for his use of a double-neck Mosrite
Mosrite
Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists....
guitar, specially built for him by Semie Moseley
Semie Moseley
Semie Moseley was a luthier, and the founder of Mosrite guitars.He was born in Durant, Oklahoma in 1935. His family migrated to California along a path similar to many "Bakersfield Okies", first moving to Chandler, Arizona in 1938, and two years later in Bakersfield, California...
, which was a boon to Moseley's fledgling career as a guitar builder. He was a band member and featured soloist on Town Hall Party
Town Hall Party
Town Hall Party was an American country music radio and television show broadcast over KXLA-AM, Pasadena, California, KFI-AM, Los Angeles, California, and KTTV-TV. The first radio broadcast was in the autumn of 1951.Promoter William B...
television broadcasts in southern California during the 1950s and a regular guest on the Jimmy Dean
Jimmy Dean
Jimmy Ray Dean was an American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. Although he may be best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand, he became a national television personality starting in 1957, rising to fame for his 1961 country crossover hit "Big Bad...
television show in the 1960s.
Joe's guitar hero was Mother Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family. Her daughter June Carter Cash
June Carter Cash
Valerie June Carter Cash was an American singer, dancer, songwriter, actress, comedienne and author who was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash...
and husband Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
so admired Joe's guitar playing that Joe is buried in a Hendersonville, TN cemetery next to Maybelle, her husband, Ezra Carter (A.P.'s brother), and daughter, Anita Carter
Anita Carter
Ina Anita Carter , the youngest daughter of Ezra and Mother Maybelle Carter, was a versatile American singer who experimented with several different types of music and played stand-up bass with her sisters Helen Carter and June Carter Cash as The Carter Sisters...
.
Mosrite guitar
Today, TNM Guitars manufactures a remake of the MosriteMosrite
Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists....
guitar, recreated by guitar luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
Terry N. McArthur. Singer/songwriter Marshall Crenshaw
Marshall Crenshaw
Marshall Crenshaw is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist best known for his song "Someday, Someway".-Biography:...
has said "If I ever buy another guitar it'll be one of these."
External links
- http://www.geocities.com/shakin_stacks/joemaphis.txt
- http://rcs-discography.com/rcs/artists/m/maph1000.htm