On this day (March 10) in 1938, Norman Blake was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is an enormously talented multi-instrumentalist, but is best known for his guitar work. Early in his career, he toured and recorded with Johnny Cash. Later, he joined Kris Kristofferson on the road. His work also appears on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, among other influential albums of the 1970s. Blake also recorded collaborative albums with bluegrass great Tony Rice.
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Blake got his first guitar when he was eleven years old and quickly learned how to play. Over the next few years, he took up mandolin, dobro, and fiddle. Finally, when he was 16 years old, he dropped out of school and joined the Dixie Drifters, where he played mandolin. The band played bluegrass and rockabilly on radio stations and TV shows in East Tennessee and North Georgia…