Hi there — Don Peterson sent me the original film footage of Snoozer playing in 1932. (What the La. State Museum had in their archives was a copy.) I’ve since had this footage digitized, and it has a crisper resolution.

I was recently contacted by Aaron Levinson, who had a wonderful suggestion… why not ask guitarists everywhere to help me solve the mystery of what Snoozer was playing? Through crowdsourcing, we can figure out what is happening in 1:20 of film. I am still trying to figure out the best way to accommodate collaboration — I would love for people to share their audio, tabs, still images, etc. til we can work this out. For now, please leave a comment!

Some things to note that might help:

• Snoozer tended to use standard tunings, but dropped down a few half steps. (I am not saying he is playing in standard tuning here, but he usually did.)
• Guitarist John Stropes pointed out to me that the exact same passages are on this film twice — speeded up and then slowed down.
• That means the approximately 1:20 seconds of this footage is only about 25 seconds of a performance. It stands to reason that Charles Peterson would have been filming a specific Snoozer trick, right?