Dave Hole
Since his recording debut 22 years ago, Dave Hole’s records and live performances have drawn raves from countless international publications, including Billboard, Downbeat, Spin, Guitar World, and Guitar Player. Similarly, he’s earned rapturous praise from the Associated Press and major US markets daily like the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. Billboard wrote; “Slide guitar fanatics will have their brains blown out by this Australian fret-melter … Remarkably inventive, technically unusual overhand slide work that separates him from the common pack … prepare to hear your jaw hitting the floor.”
Considering all the praise lavished on Dave Hole in recent years, it’s hard to believe that he’s actually been performing for more than four decades. Born in England in 1948, he moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia when he was a child.
As a teenager, he fell for the blues upon hearing a friend’s Muddy Waters record. He yearned to hear more but at that time blues records were difficult to obtain in remote Western Australia. It was also years before any blues artists began to perform there in person, so Hole had to teach himself to play. At first, only Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix albums were easily available, but with persistence, he eventually got his hands on records by Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and many others. The likes of Robert Johnson, Elmore James, and Mississippi Fred McDowell became his main “teachers”, as he listened to their recordings over and over again, absorbing all he could from these blues masters.
‘Wrong’ way of playing
Then, either by accident or by fate, Hole broke his little finger in a football game. The only way he could continue to play guitar without pain was to put a slide on his index finger and hang his hand over the top of the guitar neck. When his finger eventually healed, Hole had become so used to the ‘wrong’ way of playing (and grown so fond of the tone he was getting), that he never turned back. (Learn more: www.davehole.com )
