Army Times
Tom Scanlan : 05/04/1957

The Harris album includes up-tempo swingers such as Cherokee which finds Bill getting a walking bass from the 6th and 5th strings while weaving together some melodic chords on the first four strings. His work shows great originality throughout.

—–

Billboard : 02/23/1957
Score of 69

For several years, Bill Harris has been the guitar accompanist of the Clovers, the r&b group. His first LP shows him to be a jazzman of far wider ranger than his r&b stints are ever likely to reveal. Harris has a “classical guitar” approach to jazz, that brings things out of the instrument barely even touch on before. He plays unamplified guitar only – and with the fingers, no pick. There are no other personnel on the date besides Harris, but his virtuosity and taste keep the listener in the palm of his hand all the way. For demo purposes, try Cherokee.

—–

Madison Capital Times
John Francis : 03/05/1957

Bill Harris is a very versatile musician. He can play an organ, bugle and, best of all, guitar. Playing with his fingers (no pick), the young Nashville, N.C. artist uses an unamplified classical guitar on his first album for EmArcy. In these sides you’ll find some of the spirit of Segovia, the creative brilliance of Django and the linear development of the typical modern jazzmen. Here is a lad marked for stardom in the near future. Listen particularly for Moonglow, Cherokee, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Perdido, I Can’t Get Started, Lover and Out of Nowhere. Real good.

—–

Norfolk Ledger-Star
Clarence Walton : 06/04/1957

A rarity these days is a guitarist who’s willing to go it alone – and without electronics yet! But that’s the way it is with Bill Harris on the EmArcy LP of the same name – Bill Harris, that is. Entirely unaccompanied and on an unamplified guitar, the 32-year-old North Carolinian emerges as a jazz soloist of a considerable stature with his first album. Included are such standards as Stompin’ at the Savoy, Moonglow, I Can’t Get Started and Cherokee, and originals include the admirable K.C. Shuffle.

—–

Down Beat : 03/04/1957
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

No record this year is likely to be as welcome a surprise as this one. Harris (not the trombone Bill) has been accompanist for the r&b Clovers since 1950. Avocationally, he has had a long interest in the potentialities, jazz and classical, of the unamplified guitar. Guitarist Mickey Baker recommended Harris to EmArcy a&r head, Bobby Shad, and it is to Shad’s credit that he gave Bill this much debut room in a set that unfortunately is not apt to threaten sales records.

To quote the excellent unsigned notes (Shad’s policy of having no bylines on his notes is absurd): “This long play was made entirely with is unaided fingers (no pick) on an unamplified Tatay classical guitar, the parts for which were imported from Valencia and assembled here. The guitar has the regular classical tuning: E A D G B E.” The album is dedicated to Sophocles Papas, a Washington teacher of classical guitar who has encouraged Harris. There are attractive originals by Harris and one by Steve Pullian.

The performance is a rare pleasure. The full-colored natural sound, for one thing. And there is the blues-soul of Harris which courses richly through everything he plays. His conception is usually interesting in a mainstream way although there are times where I wish he had gone on to develop his solo more freshly. Like the annotator says, “The Bill Harris approach to jazz guitar should give pause to many of those who, in their haste to take advantage of the electric facilities available to them, may have bypassed some of the great innate resources of the instrument.” Let’s have more.

—–

Liner Notes by Unknown

The history of the guitar in modern music has been a curious one. In the early days of the New Orleans pioneers, some of the finest primitive blues were strummed on guitars and banjos; during the 1920s the banjo was a natural accessory of most rhythm sections and the guitar an occasional vehicle for solo explorations by such pioneers as Eddie Lang and Johnny St. Cyr.

During the 1930s a few of the more expert plectrists took up where Long, who died in 1933, had left off. Carl Kress and the late Dick McDonough, in particular, took time out from their commercial studio chores to indulge in tricky, carefully arranged chord-style guitar duets. In the late ’30s, the advent of such inventions as the electric guitar and the electroharp changed the entire picture.

Floyd Smith, in a blues record with Andy Kirk, produced effects that sounded like an old-fashioned steel guitar suffering from electric shock treatment, while in Oklahoma a youngster named Charlie Christian showed that the conventional Spanish guitar, when plugged into the wall at 110 volts, could lend new dynamic projection to the standard single-string solo style. Both these developments occurred in 1939. Throughout the 1940s the trend was clearly in the direction of single-string electric guitar solos. Many great instrumentalists were nurtured in this tradition as the guitar seemed to move further and further away from the spirit of Segovia.

The arrival of Bill Harris reminds us suddenly, strikingly, of the existence and importance, in 1957, of the “natural” guitar and its adaptability to modern musical requirements. It has taken quite a while for Harris to reach the public with his message, but for this EmArcy long play, which marks his solo record debut, his unique talent might have gone forever undiscovered.

Born Willie Harris in Nashville, NC, in April 14, 1925, he was the son of a minister. His mother, who played piano, taught him the rudiments of harmony and he played organ at his father’s church. When he was twelve, an uncle bought him a guitar, but his progress was so limited that he gave up. Entering the Army at eighteen in the Engineers Corps., he limited his musical activities to bugling. During the next two years he saw overseas service in England and France. After his discharge in September, 1945 he studied music under the G.I. Bill in Washington, D.C., applying his studies to the guitar.

Gradually, he become a fair jazz guitarists as well as learning to play a few classics with a pick. Later, at Columbia School of Music in Washington, Sophocles Papas (a friend of Segovia), who owned the school, took an interest in him and encouraged his studies as a classical guitarist.

The problem of making a living precluded any further efforts in this direction in 1950 when, after some time in Washing gigging with jazz groups and teaching at two or three schools as well as continuing his own studies, Bill joined the Clovers, a rhythm and blues vocal group, as accompanist. He has been on the road with this group ever since then, lost in the shuffle of the rock ‘n’ roll world, occasionally amusing himself in his spare time playing jazz tunes and classics with his fingers (no pick).

Guitarist Mickey Baker, an old friend, heard him practicing in the dressing room one day, encouraged him to make some demonstration records, and took them to Bob Shad, at EmArcy. This album is the result.

In the jazz field Harris names Oscar Moore, Barney Kessel, Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Johnny Collins among his favorites.

This long play was made entirely with his unaided fingers on an unamplified Tatay classical guitar, the parts for which were imported from Valencia and assembled here. The guitar has the regular classical tuning: E A D G B E.

Bill dedicates the album to Papas, from whom he got the guitar, not to mention professional and spiritual encouragement; to his wife, Fanny, who inspired him and encouraged him when the outlook seemed hopeless (the Harrises have three children, one of whom, Clovia, was named for the vocal group that has been so much a part of his life for the past six years); and to a fabulous character named Jim Moran, who also has done much to encourage Bill.

Little need be said about the individual performances, for when you hear what Bill has been able to do, entirely unaccompanied, on such standards as Stompin’ At The Savoy and Moonglow, the music is its own most elegant explanation. On some numbers, particularly Cherokee, he simultaneously supplies his own bass line against a fast-moving chord pattern in the top line; this incredible show of dexterity was accomplished without any trick recording or double tracking.

Ethyl, a Harris original, was dreamed up while he was driving down the highway one day, and earned its title when he stopped the car to get the gas tank filled. Possessed is based on the familiar These Foolish Things chord pattern. Dreaming and K.C. Shuffle are also originals, the latter a funky swinging blues. Ivanhoe was written by Steve Pullian of the Buddy Johnson orchestra.

The Bill Harris approach to jazz guitar should give pause to many of those who, in their haste to take advantage of the electric facilities available to them, may have bypassed some of the great innate resources of the instrument. In these sides you will find combined combined some of the spirit of Segovia, the creative brilliance of Django and the linear development of the typical modern jazzman, all fused into a style that is both academically and emotionally without parallel in the annals of contemporary plectrism. We hereby nominate Bill Harris for stardom in the very near future.