style and never used finger picks. He earned a spot in Earl Hooker's band and recorded with Hooker in the 1960s. Roulette had played lap steel in other genres before focusing on blueshe stated this helped him add more complex chords to the basic blues played by Hooker and said, "it worked". Roulette was recruited to San Francisco in the mid-1970s by Charlie Musselwhite. In 1997, he recorded a solo album, Back in Chicago: Jammin' with Willie Kent and the Gents, which won Best Blues Album of 1997 by Living Blues Magazine. Roulette's contribution to the lap slide guitar was to prove that a lap-played instrument was capable of holding its own in Chicago blues style. Slides and steels A slide used around a player's finger can be made with any type of smooth hard material that allows tones to resonate. Different materials cause subtle differences in sustain, timbre, and loudness; glass or metal are the most common choices. Longer slides are used to bridge across all six guitar strings at once, but take away the fretting ability of that finger entirely. A shorter slide allows the fingertip to protrude from the slide and allow that finger to be used to fret. Improvised slides are common, including pipes, rings, knives, spoons, and glass bottle necks. Early blues players sometimes used a knife, such as Blind Willie Johnson (pocket- or penknife) and CeDell Davis (butterknife). Duane Allman used a glass Coricidin medicine bottle. Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett was fond of using a Zippo lighter as a slide, but this was largely for special effects. Jimi Hendrix also used a cigarette lighter for part of his solo on "All Along the Watchtower". It is one of the few recordings with Hendrix on slide, and biographer Harry Shapiro notes he performed it with the guitar on his lap. For guitars designed to be played on the lap, the performer uses a solid piece of steel rather than a hollow tube. The choice of shape and size is a matter of personal preference. The most common steel is a solid metal cylinder with one end rounded into a dome shape. Some lap slide guitar players choose a steel with a deep indentation or groove on each side so it can be held firmly, and may have squared-off ends. The better grip may facilitate playing the rapid vibratos in blues music. This design facilitates