Mike Dowling

First of all, its obvious to me that Mike is as good a teacher as he is a musician.  Throughout this video (which runs for 110 minutes) he had thought through what he wants to say and how.  As a result, every point is clearly presented and demonstrated on his old National Style 'O' resonator.  He covers a lot of material on this video including bottleneck playing in general, damping techniques, fretting chords while wearing a slide, and subtle vibrato techniques; all of which I found very useful.  In addition, Mike goes through a bunch of licks, chord forms, turnarounds and techniques for playing in Open D; all of which are tabbed out in the booklet.  He also talks about the similarities between Open G and Open D by playing an Open D tune in Open G by moving everything down one string.

He shows how to play "Swamp Dog Blues", Tampa Red's "Boogie Woogie Dance",  "Stranger Here" (in both Open D and Open G), the hauntingly beautiful original tune "Jan's Song", and "Mean Ol' Frisco".  He even plays a quick version of "Amazing Grace"; but you'll have to pick that one up off the video.

All-in-all, I'd have to say that this video is first-rate and would be of great value to anyone who wants to learn to play bottleneck slide guitar; I know I intend to learn every tune in this video, plus pick up a few off the CD.