One-man band
The simplest type of "one-man band" is a singer accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar and playing a harmonica mounted in a metal "harp rack" below the mouth.
In the 1940s, entertainer and clown Benny Dougal used a crude "stump fiddle" (a single string stretched on a stick) with a footpedal-operated pair of cymbals.
In "one-man-band" shows, Fuller would use his "footdella", a footpedal-operated "sock" (hi-hat cymbal), a homemade neck harness (for a harmonica, kazoo and microphone), and a 12-string guitar.
[4] Joe Barrick, who was born in Oklahoma in 1922, wanted a way of accompanying himself on fiddle, so he built a contraption with a guitar neck on a board with footpedals to operate the notes.
Two notable one-man blues bands active in Memphis in the 1950s were Doctor Ross and Joe Hill Louis, playing guitar, harmonica and bass drum/high-hat.
[5] The simple guitar and harmonica combination (as used by such musicians as Tex Williams, Anton Newcombe, Jimmy Reed, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry) is so common now that it is rarely considered to be a one-man band.
[citation needed] The term "one-man band" is also colloquially used to describe a performer who plays every instrument on a recorded song one at a time, and then mixes them together in a multitrack studio.
While this approach to recording is more common in electronica genres such as techno and acid house than R&B and rock music, some R&B and rock performers such as Joe Hill Louis, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Paul McCartney, Elliott Smith, Kevin Parker, Kabir Suman,[7] Dave Edmunds, John Fogerty, Emitt Rhodes, Todd Rundgren, Pete Townshend, Steve Winwood, Roy Wood, Nik Kershaw, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), and Les Fradkin have made records in which they play every instrument (one after the other).
Other examples of a one-man band in the recording studio are Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails, jazz piano player Keith Jarrett for his album No End, Peter Tägtgren for Pain (musical project), Chris Carrabba for the first two albums released by Dashboard Confessional, Varg Vikernes for Burzum and Billy Corgan for The Smashing Pumpkins since 2009.
Notable artists who incorporate this technique live include Ed Sheeran, Keller Williams, That 1 Guy, Zach Deputy, and KT Tunstall.
Rick Walker[10] is another looper and multi-instrumentalist who has organized looping festivals, including a long-running annual one in Santa Cruz, California, and others in various countries.
