Onestring King

I am the Onestring King... My name is Joel Easton. I won the topanga banjo and fiddle contest with my diddlybow, and broadcast a ton of live blues performances as a DJ "onestringking" on broadcast radio, on my show "Lickin' The Wall Socket". I've performed live and on radio with Big J MacNeeley, Jimmie Maddin, Chuck Rio, Lowell Fulsom, Gatemouth Brown, Junior Watson, King Cotton, and a ton o' other blues greats. I perform and produce all over the place under my name on six string guitar and of course, on the 1 string "Diddlybow".I've done some TV production for eye-on-la, and a while back the LA Weekly said my production "LA History Book" telling the historey of LA music through the life and songs of the great Jimmie "Mad-Man Maddin" was in the top 10 of all releases for the year 2000.You can catch me at the the Pike in Long Beach (That's Chris Reece's "Pike Restaurant" at 4th and Cherry.. not the cheesy outdoor mall thingy with the same name downtown), or hire me to produce your next recording, get yer' new bands sound all tightened up, or teach you how to be a pro musician for real, instead of dreaming that a label will discover you and sign a big fat contract which doesn't happen anymore... sorry to pop yer' bubble but don't worry - I'll have you on the road to success in a couple of weeks if you really want to be a pro.If you're a musican, a music lover, a music historian, a musical anthropologist, or just a compassionate human on the rock... I'd love it if you added yourself to my page!"WHAT'S A DIDDLYBOW?" You ask? It Is a single string instrument that is native to America. The ancestory comes from the west of Africa when slaves broght their knowledge, and thus indigenous single string gourd instruments, to north america. In the south rural people - black and white - would string a wire up against their shack using the thin walls for a soundboard, and a bottle or bone for a slide to change the pitch as they plucked it, or struck it with a stick. Kids would put them on boards and take them into barrel house jams. The cigar box was integrated into the diddlybow as they were free trash that made a good soundbox. Chop down a little tree and shave it up for a neck, a binding wire from a corn broom for a string, and a wingnut for a tuner completed the instrument. I've been told Bo Diddly says he didn't take his name from the instrument... but that square guitar he plays sure looks like a cigar-box guitar to me! I play blues, old time hillbilly music, rock, funk.. anything you like on it and in any key. It is a very percussive instrument like the banjo can be.What about "6 String"? Yeah I do that, too in the styles of: Blues, Funk, Folk, Death Folk, Old-Tyme, Rock, Swing, Jazz, Early Rock-n-Roll, Americana, Roots, Country, Western, and Hillbilly-on-Fire.What about the "Washtub Bass"? Yup. Just ask me to bring it to the job and I'll double-slap it for ya.Now - a little about the great Eddie 1 String jones - who ISN'T me..................Eddie "One String" Jones was, by no stretch of the imagination, a professional musician. Nor was he even a guitar player discovered by folklorist and ethnic musicologist Frederick A. Usher in February of 1960. Usher was in Los Angeles' Skid Row section on business with an associate when he was accosted by two panhandlers. One of those two men (Jones) was holding a rough cut 2'x4' plank, a homemade one-stringed instrument of the crudest construction. Usher was bowled over and ran back home as fast as he could to grab his portable tape recorder. After hooking up to a nearby store's electricity in a deserted back alley, Usher made the first recordings of Eddie "One String" Jones. "One String" was most secretive about his technique, the origin of the instrument, even his given name, which -- it turns out -- could have been Eddie Jones or Jessie Marshall. Jones slipped back into obscurity and has eluded all modern day blues detective work to even try and append his bio with a date of his death. If there's a romantic, mystery figure in blues history, Eddie "One String" Jones would certainly be at the top of the list.