Additional information
Personnel includes: Joe Maphis (guitar, banjo, mandolin); Leon Silby (guitar, banjo); Johnny Bond, Rose Lee Maphis, Larry Collins (guitar); Marian Hall (steel guitar); Billy Hill, Fiddlin' Kate Warren (fiddle); Plas Johnson (saxophone); Jimmy Pruett (piano); Bud Dooley, Skeets McDonald (bass); Pee Wee Adams (drums). Producer: Don Law. Reissue producer: Darren Salmieri. Recorded between 1955 & 1959. Originally released on Columbia (1005). Includes liner notes by Rich Kienzle. Digitally remastered by Mark Wilder (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York). Liner Note Author: Malcolm Dome. Recording information: Radio Recorders, Hollywood, CA. Photographer: Billy Miller . Joe Maphis was one of the original country guitar hot dogs. His fleet-fingered excursions on the then-revolutionary double-necked electric guitar raised many a country fan's eyebrow in the 1950s. Unsurprisingly, he was much in demand as a session man. Maphis was a recording artist in his own right and this expanded edition of his landmark 1957 album, FIRE ON THE STRINGS, makes a clear-cut case for the guitarist's prominent place in country pickin' iconography. Listening to Maphis blaze his way through the aptly titled "Flying Fingers" one has visions of an engineer speeding up the tape, simply because its difficult to believe a human being could play that quickly and cleanly. Maphis was no slouch on the banjo either, as shown by the dazzling and again appropriately named "Floggin' the Banjo." That's not to say that Maphis was all flash; on such tunes as "Lorrie Ann" he executes simple and poignant melodies. Simplicity aside, it is the guitarist's lightning runs that earned him his stellar reputation as a guitarist's guitarist. Enhanced enormously by several bonus cuts, this album bears that legend out nicely.
