Long before Freddie King, Albert Collins, Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan made the lone star state a hot spot for Blues, Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker held the distinction of being the king of the electric Blues guitar in Texas. In addition to influencing all of these musicians, his music is said to have inspired B.B. King to learn the guitar as a youngster. Talk about influence!
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During the 50’s and 60’s, few Blues artists enjoyed as much success as Jimmy Reed. His laid back shuffle and simple arrangements made for a style that was both accessible and distinctive. These very traits also make Reed an excellent source of material for up and coming Blues players! His songs are widely known enough that you can call them out at jam sessions and have others willing to play along. They’re also easy enough to play that, even when someone hasn’t heard the tune before, they can usually figure it out quickly enough. Just tell everyone “it’s a twelve-bar Blues shuffle in E,” then count it off, and play!
Tried and true? Yes. Boring? Maybe, but the trusty old “E shape” movable major triad is an indispensable tool in any guitarist’s toolbox; one that can save you when you’d otherwise be lost in the woods. This grip will serve you well for Blues, Folk, Rock, and Country music.
The thing that makes movable chord shapes your über secret weapon is that, once you learn one finger pattern, you can use it up and down the neck of the guitar and play that chord variation in any key you want. Learn this one fingering and the note names on the sixth string of the guitar, and suddenly you know all of the major triad chords. Somebody say woot?
While this isn’t necessarily the most desirable or convenient way to play songs on the guitar, you can see how — when in a bind — knowing these shapes can at least get you something to work with. This particular shape will also serve as the starting-point for many of the other grips we’ll discuss in the future. Learn it well…
John Mayall has always been viewed as a musical father figure. Already in his thirties when the British blues invasion swept England and the U.S., Mayall provided the fertile soil from which the influential young guitarists Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, and Peter Green would grow before moving on to define the sounds of their own generation of music. That is why it seems fitting that the seventy-three year old singer and multi-instrumentalist – still as active as ever – would take time to look back and pay his respects to the man who played a similar role for Mayall.
Continue reading ‘John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers: In the Palace of the King’
One of the great tragedies in blues and rock history is that Albert Collins, the famed “Master of the Telecaster,” whose wry songwriting and biting guitar attack inspired a legion of rock players in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, died just as his career was hitting its stride. Though he had been performing and recording since the late 50s, Collins’ commercial success didn’t start clicking until nearly 30 years later, and just as he was starting to reap the rewards of three decades worth of work, he succumbed to liver cancer in 1993 at the age of 61. For fans of the blues legend, it comes as a pleasant surprise that the German label Inakustik should be releasing In Concert, a DVD of Collins’ 1985 appearance on the German music show Ohne Filter. A chance to see the “Iceman” in his prime seems too good to be true. In spite of a rather rough presentation, it manages to avoid living up to this billing.
Continue reading ‘Albert Collins and the Icebreakers: In Concert’
To quote Muddy Waters, “The blues had a baby, and they named it rock and roll.” While most fans of the latter are generally aware of this fact, it’s often surprising to discover that so few have actually explored the roots of their favorite music. For many, the blues start with Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, but the fact remains that a significant portion of the rock and roll vocabulary — both in style and substance — was born in the two-bit recording studios and juke joints of Chicago’s South side, the Mississippi Delta, and Eastern Texas. If you’re looking to get a little deeper into the blues, the following selections make an excellent starting point for any collection.
Continue reading ‘Essential Blues: 10 Must-Have Collections’
Over the course of the past 50 years, few artists serve as a better bridge between the classic Chicago Blues sounds of the 50’s and 60’s and modern Rock and Roll than Buddy Guy. Beginning his recording career in 1957, Guy recorded and performed live with three generations of artists; starting with Blues legends such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter and continuing through the British invasion of the 60’s all the way through the Blues revival of the 1990’s. Oddly, it wasn’t until the later stage of his career that the 2005 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee began to receive the recognition that he deserved.
Possessing a style that is equal parts Muddy Waters, Guitar Slim, and Jimi Hendrix, he has profoundly influenced the sounds of players ranging from Eric Clapton, to Stevie Ray Vaughan, to John Mayer, and serves as a de facto ambassador for a genre that is, sadly, but inevitably, losing many of its founding fathers.
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