Merle Travis

Merle Robert Travis was a country guitarist, songwriter, and entertainer whose innovative thumb-picking guitar technique, known as 'Travis picking,' became one of the most influential fingerstyle approaches in American music. His songs about coal mining life in Kentucky ('Sixteen Tons,' 'Dark as a Dungeon,' 'Nine Pound Hammer') drew from the same wellspring of working-class experience as the blues and became folk and country standards. His album 'Folk Songs of the Hills' (1947) was a pioneering concept album about labor and poverty. 'Sixteen Tons,' later a massive hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, became an anthem of working-class solidarity. His guitar style influenced Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, and generations of fingerpickers.