During the twentieth century, the electric guitar rose to what Waksman (2001) has described as a “position of relative supremacy in the instrumental hierarchy of popular music” due in part to its ability to function effectively within and across the four textural layers present in popular music. While much of the stylistic research surrounding the electric guitar to date has focused on the lead guitar and its players due to the musical and cultural agency ascribed to the role, the aim of this chapter is to examine the electric rhythm guitar in popular music. The chapter offers a review of the literature and current knowledge surrounding the rhythm guitar and briefly discusses the often problematic divisions of labor between rhythm and lead playing. The chapter then assesses varied approaches to rhythm playing taken by electric guitar practitioners on key recordings from the genres of jazz, blues, R&B, rock and roll, funk, and disco. Rather than reinforcing an assumed binary opposition of lead and rhythm guitar functions, the chapter argues for a consideration of a rhythm-lead guitar spectrum/continuum supported by an assessment of the case studies presented in the chapter.

Through Danny Barker, Shipton is introduced to trumpeter Buck Clayton, beginning a friendship that ultimately leads to Shipton inheriting some of Clayton's music and forming a band in his memory. But Clayton prompts Shipton into writing and researching a book about Fats Waller. Shipton meets as many Waller band survivors as possible, including guitarist Al Casey (with whom he tours in the UK), trumpeters Jabbo Smith and Bill Coleman, saxophonist Franz Jackson, and significantly, drummer Harry Dial. This chapter gives background to Shipton's book on Waller, and brings alive the era of 1930s New York and of swing bands on the road.

Ellison’s first collection of essays, Shadow and Act, contains several of the most important pieces in the canon of jazz writing, and first and foremost among them are those based on his childhood and adolescence in Oklahoma City. It was there that Ellison was encouraged by many of the men who were to become iconic national figures and have a profound influence on the music: Lester Young, Charlie Christian, Hot Lips Page, and Jimmy Rushing. This chapter will explore not only the way that Ellison captured the particularities of their Southwestern swing, but also how it may have influenced his writing style.