The guitarist of the day is Joe Maphis "King of the Strings"

You probably did, but I didn't know anything about Joe Maphis until I very recently starting listening, looking at videos, etc. He is the typical "find" in terms of ruining all my assumptions about who invented what and who invented it first. It's the typical mistake: thinking that the first time we heard a style or a sound that impacts us, it is the original utterance.*  Check out Joe Maphis, the virtuoso from Bakersfield (Merle Haggard must've known him?) You'll quake in your snakeskin Gucci boots. The double-neck Mosrite is out of control.

The entry is lifted from Wikipedia (a dubious source), but one that gets us started:

Born Otis W. Maphis (born May 12, 1921 Suffolk, Virginia – died June 27, 1986), was an American country music guitarist. He married singer Rose Lee Maphis in 1948.

One of the flashiest country guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s, Joe Maphis was known as The King of the Strings.^[1] He was able to play many stringed instruments with great facility.^[2] However, he specialized in dazzling guitar virtuosity. Working out of Bakersfield, California, he rose to prominence with his own hits such as "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)" as well as playing with acts like Johnny Burnette, Doyle Holly, The Collins Kids, Wanda Jackson, Rose Maddox and Ricky Nelson. His playing was an influence on such greats as Merle Travis, Jimmy Bryant and Chet Atkins. He was known for his use of a double-neck Mosrite guitar, specially built for him by Semie Moseley, which was a boon to Moseley's fledgling career as a guitar builder. He was a regular guest on the Jimmy Dean television show in the 1960s.

Joe's guitar hero was Mother Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family. Her daughter June Carter Cash and husband Johnny Cash so admired Joe's guitar playing that Joe is buried in a Hendersonville, TN cemetery next to Maybelle, her husband, Ezra Carter (A.P.'s brother), and daughter, Anita Carter.

"Pickin' and a Singin.'" A display of crazy virtuousity by Maphis on double-neck electric guitar, mandolin, violin, banjo, upright bass, and vocals. The hat flourish at the end is symbolic of a time when a certain kind of of showmanship was a required professional skill. My wife is right in saying that Maphis on all the other instruments really contextualizes the double-neck guitar playing that was his primary focus. I wish I'd thought of that-damn it.




* check out the this video of Jimi Hendrix listening to Buddy Guy in New Orleans, and experience the same kind of reality check. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v5YWSBD23U