A slide guitar note is earned, shaped by decades of listening, timing, and the ghosts of the great bluesmen. “Slide playing is all about intonation, which only comes through time. You can’t skip over those things. When I feel like I’m not where I need to be, I’ll check in with players like Elmore James or Son House to remind myself. Through them I learned how you attack a note affects whether it sings or not, which can change whether people want to hear it. If you bring them in with a beautiful emotion from the beginning, you can dig in and take it anywhere.” Derek Trucks⁠