Thought I’d drop in here and introduce myself,,I’m Kent Blanton, but in music rounds known simpley as Superman,, I’m from Nashville TN and yes you read it right FROM Nashv, I was born and raised here, which is a rareity these days to find a musician thats from here. I started playing bass at age 11,I was in the band at school and there was a old Epiphone bass just laying there so I hit the band director about letting me take it home over the summer and learn to play it,,of corse he handed me a bow and some sheet music,but I soon ended up at a local country jam with a lot of old Opry sidemen,,in fact one of Hank Snows old steel players showed me how to play a walk,,and I havent been the same since.
I have had the pleasure of working with alot of great artist over the years, I got to work for the Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe when I was 18,,scared to death, Marty Stuart,Earl Scugss,Patty Loveless,Jimmy Martin,Dierks Bentley,Billy Bob Thornton,Hank JR, and a bunch more are names that I have either preformed or recorded with.
I’m the guy with the drum on the side of my bass, its called the drum attachment, it was started here in Nashv back in the late 40s, as a way to have a drummer at the Opry, since at the time drums were not allowed there, A fellow named Ernie Newton came up with the idea,he used it of hundereds of recordings back through the 50s,,Lighnin Chance also used the drum attachment,,he was also a studio man but did’nt have quite the touch that Newton had,,but Lightnin was a staff player at the Opry for a long time, and ended up in most of the photos that you might see of the drum.
As you can tell my interest in slap playing comes much more from the billy than the rock side,Joe Zinkan is a name that is not much reconized out side of a few old studio guys here in Nashv, but Joe was one of the 1st really good bass players here in Nashv
he really set the mark,He learned how to slap back in the late 30s from a black jazz player, who worked on river boats on the Miss river.
Though out the 40s and 50s he worked for Roy Acuff, who at the time was the “Garth” of his day.Old Opry programs list Joe as a solo quite frequenly,most of the tunes he did are old jazz tunes like Tiger Rag ,4 leaf clover, Dark town Strutter Ball,and prob a dozen more.Joe got tired of the road and quit traveling in the late 50s, he soon went to work in the studios,He recored for almost all the big country artist of the 60s at one time or another,,but he mostly workd for Columbia label,In the mid 60s he landed jobs on some of the sydicated TV shows that came out of Nashv at the time.I have some footage of him doing solos on some of these same songs that he did with Acuff.He was a amazing player. but I still have very little of any of his stuff from the 40s,,which I’m sure is mind blowing.
I got to meet Joe in the 90s a few years before he passed, and became good friends with him, and ended up buying his old bass he had used since the 30s.
Since then I have been on a mission to reintroduce Joe and all of his music,He was one of the main influence on so many other country players, Jr Huskey, and his son Roy ,both who were tremendous slap player both site Zinkan as a big influence,Jake Tullock, who played for Flatt&Scruggs, also learned a lot form Joe,, and almost any bluegrasser will site Jake as a influence.
And although I’ve never asked Marshall Grant,I bet he’s heard of Joe also.Djordje has asked me to write a article on Zinkan and I hope to in the near future,I’m glad to find this site with only slap bass in mind,,theres alot of times too much bull at some other fourms over which type of music you play ,and such as that
I welcome any questions any time, thanks Kent
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