Why I Suck.. Progress Report #11 - Jimi Hendrix!

 Oh yes, the day has come. 30 days of the man himself – the one, the only, the icon that is James Marshall Hendrix. I've been a fan of his ever since my early days of guitar playing, but I'd never actually sat down and tried to work out any of his stuff by ear myself, believing I needed to be dependent on tablatures... another instance of failing to see something that was right in front of me! I'm not going to belabour Jimi's life story as it's told in many other places in great depth and detail, but for those of you unfamiliar with his background I'll give a quick synopsis before we get into the nice juicy licks...

Born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27 1942 in Seattle, Washington to parents Al and Lucille (and the first of five children, all who would end up being given up for adoption or foster care), his upbringing was a tempestuous one as Al struggled to find steady work after being honourably discharged from the US Army on September 1 1945. The family nounced from cheap apartment to cheap motel room, and both Al and Lucille took refuge in alcohol, leading to frequent fights between them. The young Jimi (having been renamed James Marshall Hendrix in 1946) was deeply affected by these experiences, often taking to hiding in closets. In 1951 they were divorced, with Al being granted custody of Jimi and Leon. In 1958, Lucille passed away from a ruptured spleen as the years of alcohol abuse caught up with her, having developed cirrhosis of the liver. Jimi (16 at this point) and Leon were not allowed to go to their mothers' funeral, their father instead buying them shots of whiskey and telling them that was how men dealt with loss.. So, not exactly an idyllic childhood. And understandably, young Jimi picked up a few quirks.

His habit of cradling a broom much as a child would hold a security blanket, in emulation of a guitar, caught the attention of his high school social worker who suggested that the lack of a guitar might actually be causing him psychological damage and requested schhol funding. This sady failed, and Al refused to buy him a guitar, but whilst helping his father with a house clearance in 1957, Jimi discovered a ukulele with one of the four strings still attached. He was allowed to keep the instrument, with it's single string, and began playing along by ear to rock and roll records, particularly “Hound Dog”. Finally, in 1958 he acquired a cheap acoustic guitar and that's when things got started in earnest. Hendrix would practice for hours along to records by the blues greats such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and BB King. In fact one thing I remember thinking when I was tackling BB King was that at some point Jimi would have been doing what I was doing – studying the same songs, picking out the same notes by ear. There's an eerie thrill to be had there.

Anyway, back to the story! The first tune Hendrix learnt was Peter Gunn, and after his first gig with his first band the Velevtones it was obvious that he needed an electric guitar to be heard over the band. Al finally relented in 1959 and bought Jimi a white Supro Ozark guitar, and he had his first gig with a professional band – who promptly fired him for showing off! His next band was The Rocking Kings, who gigged regularly around Seattle. Sadly the Supro was stole one night at a gig and Al – now convinced of his son's ability and determination – replaced it with a red Danelectro.

However, it was not all plain sailing, as by age 19 Jimi had been caught riding in stolen cars and amassed enough of a criminal record to be faced with the choice between joining the army or prison. Hendrix chose the army, and must have impressed during his basic training as he wound up being assigned to the elite 101^st Airborne. However, he didn't take to soldiering and was eventually given a general discharge. He didn't enjoy army life, but during this time he met and impressed bass player Billy Cox. In 1963, a year after Hendrix was discharged, Cox was discharged too and the pair moved to Tennessee to form the King Kasuals – this was where Hendrix picked up the trick of playing with his teeth. From there, they moved to Nashville in 1964 and Jimi began to take jobs as a sideman – backing James Brown, Little Richard and Ike & Tina Turner as well as the Isley Brother with whom he recorded the single “Testify”.

Hendrix soon found sideman work to be restrictive and unfulfilling, citing incidents with James Brown and Little Richard where band members would be fined for minor infractions like incorrect dress, errors in dance routines etc being essentially methods by which bandleaders would find excuses not to pay their members. He made the move to Greenwich Village in New York in 1966 and we all know the story from there – impressed Animals bass player Chas Chandler so much he brought Jimi to England, set him up with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell to form the Jimi Hendrix Experience, they released “Hey Joe” as a single and from there Jimi would go on to become a megastar guitar icon before his tragic death at the age of 27.

It's startling to reflect that Hendrix was a relative latecomer to the guitar, and even more humbling to realise he accomplished everything he did in just twelve years- from picking out melodies on a one string ukulele to practically inventing psychedelic rock with a burning Stratocaster, a cranked Marshall and a wah. Having been playing for, at the time of writing, 26 years myself, I can't help wondering a) where he found the time, and b) what the hell have I been doing all this time??

Well, after a pause for reflection, let's get into the nitty gritty of his playing. All the examples here are drawn from the “Blues” album, as with all the theatrics involved with Hendrix's performances, he was at heart a blues guitarist, and he played the blues beautifully, with a deftness and intricacy I don't think I quite realised until I began to transcribe his material.

The tools he used were pretty much the same as everyone else we've covered so far – minor and major pentatonics with a smattering of blues scale – although he would find his way to include elements of Dorian and Mixolydian tonalities in his more psychedelic exploits, and songs like “The Wind Cries Mary” showcased his ability to use chord fragments to construct solos.

To do justice to his playing in a thorough in depth analysis would mean this article not getting finished until sometime around 2025, so I'm going to purposely limit the scope here. We#re going to take a simple minor pentatonic phrase which crops up in many of his improvisations, and see how he develops it.

Here's the basic phrase:

Here's the first development of it (all these are taken from Red House, tabbed in Bb for convenience but probably played in B and detuned to Eb), starting to incorporate sequencing ideas:

This next one effectively takes the Magic Three Notes idea my students will be very familiar with and moves it up onto the E and B strings to create a blistering repetitive pattern

This final development takes you all the way down the scale, and includes an actually there bum note on the recording! Just goes to show that if Hendrix can make a mistake and laugh it off, improvising his way out of it, then surely we all can take some lessons from that – don't fear the so-called “wrong” note, just hold your nerve and keep going!

We'll return to Jimi again as there's SO much to be learnt from his playing, but as time is a factor we'll move on to the final act of 2020 – the Texas Tornado, Stevie Ray Vaughan himself!

Stay safe and sane out there, and may you all have the best Christmas and New Year's that COVID restrictions allow for....

Why I Suck... Progress Report #10! Mike Bloomfield

Another month, another lockdown announcement and oh look, the clocks have gone back so that's the sun going down at 4pm now... 2020 has provided no shortage of reasons to play the blues, so let's take a look at one of it's more overlooked exponents – Mike Bloomfield. Now I must confess to knowing the name but never really having listened to much of his playing, so this was a bit of a voyage of discovery for me. First, a little on the man himself.

Michael Bernard Bloomfield was born in Chicago to a wealthy Jewish family on July 28^th of 1943. Growing up, he increasingly found himself rejecting the discipline of school and the expectations of a wealthy, respectable family and drawn to the raw, earthy blues scene developing in Chicago's South and West sides (where, as previous articles have noted, the likes of BB King were beginning to make their mark). He acquired a guitar from a pawnshop run by one if his grandfather's, and despite being left handed, trained himself to play right-handed. Spending time at the pawnshop brought the relatively affluent Bloomfield into contact with people from the other side of life – people down on their luck, trying to scrape a few dollars together to get by for another week – and inevitably, into contact with blues music which was still very much “black music” in a racially divided nation.

A natural talent on piano as well as guitar, Bloomfield practiced many hours, refining his technique and picking out licks from recordings by artists such as the three Kings (Albert, Freddie and B.B.), Little Richard, Otis Rush and Scotty Moore, and by the early 1960's was a regular on the Chicago blues scene – to the point where Muddy Waters described the young Mike as his “son”. He would record as a sideman with both Waters and Howlin' Wolf before joining his first regular band, the Paul Butterfield Blues band with the eponymous singer and blues harp player.

It wasn't long – 1963, in fact – before he encountered and impressed a young up-and-coming folk singer by the name of Bob Dylan in a Chicago folk club, and in 1965 Dylan invited Bloomfield to the recording session for “Like A Rolling Stone”, where he made an immediate impact. However, he declined the opportuity to tour with Dylan, preferring to stay with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and doing occasional sessio work.

His next move came in 1967, moving to San Francisco and creating the short-lived psychedelic blues band The Electric Flag. He continued with session work on the side but mental health issues were beginning to take their toll. Bloomfield had long suffered with insomnia and had taken to heroin to try ad obviate the problem. This went about as well as you'd expect, and Bloomfield in fact gave up playing completely during 1970 -” ...and I put the guitar down – didn't touch it. Shooting junk made everything else unimportant, null and void, nolo contendre. My playing fell apart. I just didn't want to play. “

He continued recording and playing smaller, lower-profile gigs through the 1970s, but ultimately – tragically - met his end on February 15 1981, eight days after his final gig at the San Francisco State College. He was found dead in his car, an empty bottle of Valium by his side. Just 37 years old. The death was ruled as accidental, but it's easy to see how – as with Peter Green – the combination of drugs and mental health problems contributed to his downfall, and the world lost a great talent, described by no less than Eric Clapton as “music on two legs”. And so in the pantheon of blues greats, he is often overlooked, but his playing was up there with all of them.

So, that's the sad story of a talent that never really got a chance to shine. Let's take a moment to analyse some of his licks and see just what Mike Bloomfield could do.

In this excerpt from the Paul Butterfield cover of B.B. King's "I've Got A Mind To Give Up Living" in C minor, Bloomfield begins by outlining a C minor arpeggio, before alternating between 4th and major 3rd, finishing with a bend from 4th to 5th, and finishing on the 5th (G). The major/ sus4 alternation crops up a lot in Jimmy Page's blues playing too, although this is probably explained by the fact that both players copped it from B.B. King.

In this lick from later in the same track, he uses a chromatic "fill in" approach with minor pentatonic position 1, before sliding deftly into position 3.

In this final example, taken from The Electric Flag's cover of "The Killing Floor", Bloomfield starts off on a Bb - the b2. And to be honest, I'm not convinced he does it on purpose. However, he manages to articulate it with such authority and confidence that he makes it sound right.. proof, if it were needed, that there really is no such thing as a"wrong" note, at least in the blues! Check out the use of microtones to move in between the minor and major third - that ambiguity which is so critical to the blues.

So there we go, hopefully that has piqued your interest in a sadly overlooked and underrated player who still made a great contribution to the blues and music in general. Check him out on YouTube and Spotify, you'll be glad you did! 

Stay safe and sane out there, because next month it's the big man himself- Jimi Hendrix!

Why I Suck... Progress Report #9! Eric Clapton (Bluesbreakers era)

 This month, we welcome God himself into the humble pages of this blog. That is, God in the shape of Eric Clapton in his early career – specifically the legendary “Beano” album recorded with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

And you're going to have to forgive me for feelig just the tiniest bit smug, as I set myself the goal of transcribing all the solos off this one through September – and managed it! So that's this and “Live At The Regal” done – 2020 is proving to suck for pretty much everyone, but I will definitely be finishing this year a far better player than I started it as. I would absolutely recommend setting aside a portion of your practice time to work on transcription, almost regardless of ability level, as improving your ear is so crucial to developing every aspect of musicianship.

Anyway, enough digression – let's look at EC himself. As he's so deeply ingrained into the mainstream musical “establishment” now, it's hard to picture Clapton as a rock & roll outsider, but in the early 1960's that is exactly what he was. He began his guitar journey with something that we can all identify with - being given a cheap guitar by a kindly but uninformed relative, discovering that cheap = badly made & VERY difficult to play (at least it did before Yamaha brought out the Pacifica 112 in the 90s), and putting it down feeling like it's an impossibility. This false start – very similar to what I had myself at that age – would be remedied a couple of years later and Clapton began playing in earnest age 15, now motivated by a deep seated love of the blues music coming out of America. He would practice long hours, poring over licks and solos to get each one just so, often recording himself on a reel to reel tape recorder to check his progress.

In 1961 the now 16 year old Clapton enrolled in Kingston Art College but his focus remained on music and he took to busking around the area, starting to play more with other musicians and local bands before finding his first high profile gig with The Yardbirds in October of 1963. They were primarily focused on blues and rock & roll, but in March of 1965 had a breakthrough pop single with “For Your Love” which took them in a completely different directoion, and not one Clapton was happy with. He left, and joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in April of 1965 recording the famous “Beano” album with them. This is a semi-legendary album in guitar circles because at the time it really wasn't like anything that had been done before. Distortion, for example, was not something considered desirable by amp manufacturers so Clapton would push his Les Paul and Marshall to absolutely ear splitting volumes in order to get the thick, sustaining sound heard on tracks like “Steppin' Out” and his famous cover of “Hideaway”. His pentatonic pyrotechnics were also a world away from the sounds of someone like Hank Marvin or the Beatles which were most people's reference points for what a guitar should sound like, and what guitar playing was at that point.

Clapton would leave the band briefly in 1965 before rejoining, and then leaving again (admitting himself in later years to have been more than a little “flaky”) in July of 1966, ironically enough before the album itself had been released. He would go on to form Cream, another blues rock powerhouse and important link in the chain, but that's a story for another time – we're looking at EC's Bluesbreaker plaing this month.

I've lost count of the number of times I've written this now, but the basis of his style is the combination of minor and major pentatonics – as it has been with everyone we're looking at, we're looking much more at the “how” than the “what”. Let's start with the iconic opener to the album – the cover of the Otis Rush song “All Your Love”.

This opening “rip” up the fretboard was in itself a pretty bold statement, as it's immediately distinctive and not something most listeners would have heard before, especially performed with such volume and ferocity.

Clapton was also fond of repicking bent notes, something seen in his “Little Girl” solo where his rhythms double up what the basis is playing, crafting the solo into the fabric of the song rather than being a “here's twelve bars for you, go nuts” approach.

And I couldn't finish this without showing a couple of examples of his masterful blending of major and minor pentatonics:

We'll return to EC next year looking at his Cream – era playing, as he's such an influential player, but next month we're back across the Atlantic to check out Mike Bloomfield – till then, stay safe, stay sane, play they blues HARD!

Why I Suck.... Progress Report #8 - Peter Green

 So, yes, I've gone out of sequence here, Peter Green wasn't supposed to be my object of study until October – but Nature has no respect for our plans and selfishly took this brilliant if troubled musician from us on July 25^th, so swapping him to August and really delving into his style seemed an appropriate way of paying my respects to one of the truly great blues players.

Born Peter Allen Greenbaum on October 29^th 1946 in London's Bethnal Green as the youngest of four children, it was Peter's brother Michael who first got him started, teaching him his first few chords. But by 11 he'd caught the bug seriously and begun teaching himself, heavily influenced (as many of his generation were) by The Shadow's Hank Marvin. By 15 he was playing professionally, playing bass and lead guitar in a variety of covers and rhythm and blues based bands. When John Mayall's Bluesbreakers exploded onto the scene with Eric Clapton after recording the now legendary “Beano” album in 1965, Green (having dropped the “baum” from his surname after being teased about it at school) was inspired to focus heavily on lead guitar and was a frequent attendee at their gigs during the “Clapton Is God” era of 1965-66.

It was Clapton's self-admitted unreliability and flakiness – leaving mid-tour to take a holiday in Greece – that would lead to Green's breakthrough. John Mayall recounts that during the Bluesbreaker's gigs with a variety of dep guitarists, Green would frequently be in the audience. “Peter had pestered John to employ him,” remembers Clapton, “often turning up at gigs and shouting from the audience that he was much better than whoever was playing that night. “

Soon enough, he would get his chance to prove it. After four concerts with the Bluesbreaker's as a dep, Green was hired as a full time band member and recorded “ A Hard Road” including self-penned instrumental “The Supernatural”, famous for it's eerie shimmer and sustain, as well as a blistering cover of Freddie King's “The Stumble” - which I spent most of August transcribing and will form the basis for this month's licks.

During his tenure with the Bluesbreaker's, Green met drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, and in 1967 they left the Bluesbreakers to form Fleetwood Mac with additional guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. Early Fleetwood Mac brought success with blues influenced tracks like “Oh Well”, “Green Manalishi”, “Man Of The World” and the instrumental “Albatross” which incredibly remains Fleetwood Mac's only number one single!

Unfortunately this period also brought Green into contact with LSD which he began taking in increasing quantities. This, combined with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, led to his quitting Fleetwood Mac and music in general for an extended period. The details of this are widely available, so I'm going to switch to a personal perspective here as his re-emergence in the mid 90s coincided with me getting serious about guitar playing, and my dad playing me the famous intro solo to the Fleetwood Mac with the encouragement to “learn that”! Which I duly did, with the aid of an early copy of Guitar Techniques magazine running a feature on him in early 1996 with transcriptions of both that and “Albatross”.

Fast forward a couple of years to 1999, and I was at Leeds University in my second year, and a regular at the open mic down the road from the university itself. I struck up a friendship with Jet Martin who ran it and was a solo blues artist, and one evening he mentioned to me that Peter Green (now with the Splinter Group, a blues project he formed in the 90s as part of his rehabilitation) was playing at the nearby Irish Centre, and as he shared management he was going to be the support – and would I like to be on the guest list?

Having never been on the guest list for anything, unsurprisingly my answer was yes, and not only did I get to see Peter Green himself from about 6 feet away, but also to meet him! However it was clear that his recovery at that point was far from 100%, he was very distant – not unpleasant, perfectly polite...just carrying on a completely separate conversation from the one I was trying to have with him- still, I have his autograph!

Right, enough history, let's get to analysing his playing style.

It will come as absolutely no surprise to both of you who've been following this blog that the major and minor pentatonics formed the basis of Green's style, and he had a beautiful knack of blending the two (for example, the cover of “Need Your Love So Bad”). His approach blended position 3 of A minor pentatonic with position 4 of A major:

And here's a typical Green style lick blending these two:

Now, Peter Green is rightly revered as a beautiful “feel” player with exquisite taste, touch and tone. But he could also put pedal to metal when he wanted to, and on his cover of Freddie King's “The Stumble” he does exactly that, pulling out this absolutely blistering triplet based E minor pentatonic run: https://youtu.be/NLpziHTO-Nc?t=70

Check out the ingenious way the phrasing seems to double back on itself, as well as the dash of b5 from the blues scale to top things off. Not to mention the sheer size of the thing – over four bars long! In terms of the mental agility required to pull off something like that it's akin to running the 100m sprint but on a tightrope strung across Niagra Falls – hugely impressive.

Have fun with these and see you next month for God himself, the John Mayall- era Eric Clapton!

Why I Suck... #7 - Jimmie Vaughan!

 You all (y'all – we're talking about Texas blues here) know the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan and his stupendoues command of blistering blues licks, shimmery intricate chord work and inimitable glassy Stratocaster tone. But – do you know who he credited as his biggest influence? His older brother, Jimmie.

Born in Dallas, Texas in 1951, Jimmie begain playing in his early teens and his first band played Dallas' Hob Knob lounge six nights a week, giving the young guitar okayer a through grounding in the rigours of live performance. In 1969 he got a big break, opening the show for Jimi Hendrix at Fort Worth – this show would see Jimmie lending Hendrix his Vox wah pedal, which Hednrix broke! However, in return, Hendrix gave him his own touring wah pedal. Not a bad trade.

Jimmie's next move would see him hitching across country to Austin, Texas and eventually finding success with The Fabulous Thunderbirds. After a troubled start – the bands' first four albums were a critical, but not commercial, success – ther career peaked with a top 40 single “Tuff Enuff” that featured in the 1986 film “Gung Ho”. A couple more commercial albums followed, but Jimmie left in 1990 to form a duo with his brother Stevie Ray – sadly this would be all too short lived as Stevie would be killed in a helicopter crash on August 27 of that year.

Since 1994 Jimmie has pursued a solo career, releasing his first album containing the song “Six Strings Down”, dedicated to Stevie's memory, and he continues to perform to this day.

Jimmie's style is, unsurprisingly, pentatonic based, and he is a spare, unflashy player with a gift for hitting just the right note at the right time. Indeed, Stevie Ray once attributed his own high octane style to being unable to successfully emulate Jimmie! There is nothing particularly technically difficult here, but instead try to listen and grasp the “storytelling” aspect of these licks:

This is based on the G minor pentatonic theme from the SRV/ JV collaboration "D/FW".

C minor pentatonic intro from "Boom Bapa Boom"

And opening bars of the solo.

Each of these follows a coherent “call / response” or “call / response / call / conclusion” pattern. This is something you can carry over to all aspects of soloing, regardless of genre.

Right, next month we're going off schedule and checking out the great and now very sadly late Peter Green – see you then!

Why I Suck.... Progress Report #6 - Buddy Guy!

You damn right it's Buddy Guy! One of the last of the “first gen” guitar heroes, and one of the few living links to the early Chicago blues days, Buddy – nee George - Guy was born in Lettsworth Louisiana on July 30 1936 to his sharecropper parents, Sam and Isabel. As a child he would pick cotton, earning $2.50 for every 100 pounds picked, but music and specifically guitar was in his blood from his earliest years, and he began playing on a two string diddley bow (an instrument built around glass bottle, scrap wood and strings) that he built himself. He was eventually given a Harmony acoustic guitar which set him on his way, picking out tunes and licks by ear from records.

In 1957 he moved to Chicago and earned a contract with Cobra Records, recording with Ike Turner amongst others, and after two releases he moved to the legendary Chess Records, home of blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf amongst others. He worked largely in the session player/ sideman capacity during this period, but also appearing on occasions with British blues and rock artists like Clapton and Led Zeppelin. In fact, it was only the blues revival of the late 80s and early 90s that saw his career really start to take off, with Eric Clapton requesting his presence on the “24 Nights” all start guitar show at the Royal Albert Hall. It was off the back of these performances that Guy signed with Silvertone Records and released his signature album “Damn Right I Got The Blues” in 1991. At the age of 55, he would become a true star of the blues – the moral here is never give up!

It's worth noting that just like Albert Collins, Buddy is a true showman, and has always been – playing a Stratocaster with an extra long cable behind his head and with his teeth, and being associated in his later years with his unmistakeable “polka dot” Strat which Fender turned into a signature model in 1995.

As of 2019, he still plays approximately 130 dates a year – although sadly COVID 19 will have curtailed that this year – and maintains Buddy Guy's Legends blues club in Chicago (which I had the pleasure of visiting in 2010) which hosts many up and coming blues artists.

So, enough of the man – onto the playing! Buddy's playing is probably best described as controlled chaos, a simmering wellspring of energy barely kept in check by a player bursting with ideas. As with all the players we've been looking at over this year, the minor pentatonic forms the basis of his style – but as with all of the players we've been looking at, it's not the what but the how. For one thing, his command of dynamics is masterful, being able to go from a whisper to a shout in the space of a single bar, and skilfully juxtaposing the tone of his licks against his vocals. In this respect, he rivals even B.B. King.

His mastery of string bend is unsurpassed, with an ability to bend perfectly in tune or slightly flat or sharp as the song requires. His track “Black Night” has a trick I've never heard anywhere else, where he bends up and brings the note down while applying an almost violent vibrato, creating an unearthly, ghost like sound.

Like many players, Buddy is fond of the “BB King” pentatonic box – this utilises the highest four notes from shape 2 of the minor pentatonic, in A minor giving us the G, A , C and D notes on the 8^th and 10^th frets of the B and E strings. This allows him to reach the E (5^th) by means of a bend – also to tease the b5 from the blues scale by means of a semitone bend – and resolve to the A root with the third finger for a powerful and stinging vibrato.

He is equally at home with the major pentatonic, however, as his cover of “Sweet Little Angel” proves, including this beautiful BB King- esque intro lick:

Double stop licks like this one also form an important part of his style, as he tends to play with clean-ish sound and with a single coil Stratocaster (usually in his signature polka dot finish) – double stops help fill a lot of sonic space, I like to think of them as Nature's distortion pedal. Here's an example of his use of this technique:

Finally, a typical Guy-style fast and complex run. He manages to have the knack of cramming just the right number of notes into a particular musical space, even when you think he's going to trip up and oversaturate the beat he still manages to pull it back!

Until next month, enjoy and go check out this living link to the origins of Chicago blues – Buddy Guy was thre at the beginning, he's there now, and he's finally getting the recognition he always deserved. Next month, we're visiting Austin, Texas for a look at the lesser known Vaughan brother – Jimmie Vaughan.

Why I Suck..Progress Report #5! Albert Collins

This month, it's the Master of the Telecaster himself – the one and only Albert Collins! A hugely influential figure in the blues pantheon (just ask Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan or Robert Cray), Albert's powerful, stinging phrasing earned him the nickname “Iceman”. Marrying the bright, biting tone of a Telecaster's bridge pickup with a (usually) clean sound picked with his thumb and fingers for extra “snap” gave him a distinctive tone often described as an “ice pick”. Albert would play off this description, naming many of his signature tracks around this theme – his instrumental track “Frosty”, his cover of T-Bone Walker's “Cold, Cold Feeling”, albums named “Ice Pickin'”, “Frostbite”, “Don't Lose Your Cool”, “Cold Snap”, “Iceman” and so on.

He was a consummate showman, often playing with an extra long cable to allow him to interact with members of the audience. Several anecdotes tell of him leaving the club with audience in tow to buy a chocolate bar without stopping playing, another tells of him leaving the building whilst playing his solo, and then returning to the stage. A few minutes later a man showed up to deliver the pizza Albert had ordered.

I can only hope that story is true.

As you would expect, the minor pentatonic forms the backbone of his style. He was adept, however, at blending the major – particularly the natural 6^th – into his playing, and we'll look at a couple of licks that take advantage of that. However, be aware that you're unlikely to get them sounding exactly right – just as with Albert King back in January (remember that? Before R rates, PPE and social distancing became part of the everyday vocabulary? ), he would tune his guitar in a very non-standard way, in this case an open F minor (F C F Ab C F) and capo high up the neck. Happily, most of his licks do translate pretty well to standard tuning, so we can get a good approximation of his style.

Let's take a look at couple of licks from his signature track, “Frosty” in the key of D (which seemed to be a favourite).

This one has a characteristic quirk, using the major 6^th and minor 3^rd – those of you familiar with the modes will recognise that as Dorian – but what gives the lick it's bite is the six semitone interval between the b3 (F) and the major 6^th (B) – the interval of six semitones is in itself a b5, the dreaded tritone, or “Devil's Interval”.

The 6^th can be an incredibly effective note to use in a blues, as the 6^th (B) over the I chord (D) translates to being the the 3^rd when you move to the G chord (G-B-D). When you combine this with another blues trick – hammering or bending the minor 3^rd into the major – you're left with a seriously tasty blues vocabulary that can move between major and minor tonalities. Let's leave you with another couple of licks to try out:

Combine these with a stinging fingerpicked attack and a biting single coil bridge pickup and you've got a sound which inspired a generation of Texas blues players! Enjoy, stay safe out there and tune in next month for the delicate to frantic phrasing and lunatic string bends of Buddy Guy!

Raindrops - Daniel Porter

A VERY talented young student of mine making the absolute best of the lockdown - check out https://www.facebook.com/DanPorterMusic/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5FUWnLT-4EqK5AyZNHdUw

Why I Suck... Progress Report #4: T- Bone Walker

This month we're looking at possibly the most influential of all the early blues artists – the guy who the BB Kings, Chuck Berrys et al listened to and copped licks from, the one and only Aaron Thibeaux! (Better known as T-Bone Walker). Straight away I heard licks I recognised from Stevie Ray Vaughan and the intro to Johnny B Goode – clearly we're dealing with someone very significant in the blues pantheon.

T-Bone Walker was born in Texas (as with Freddie King a generation later) in 1910, but it was not until the late 1940s that he would start to come to prominence, as one of the first blues guitar heroes to embrace the electric guitar in the immediate post-WW2 era. His devotees included none other than Jimi Hendrix, who also admired his abilities as a showman – it was Walker who pioneered the technique of playing with his teeth, behind his back, and behind his head!

The basic foundation of his style is, as with so many blues players, the basic minor pentatonic scale. In fact, the more of his licks I transcribed, I've really found that his style is a lesson in doing more with less. He was adept at phrasing across the bar line, creating long flowing lines that never seemed to run out of notes. Interestingly, there's not too much in the way of “techniques” - hammer ons and pull offs, string bends etc – and I think we can ascribe that to the fact that he was playing a hollow body strung with 0.013 gauge strings. Most of his string bending seems to have been “sound effect” rather than melodic – quarter tones hinting at major/minor ambiguity or pulling the 4^th toward the b5th. What's interesting is the sheer amount of notes he was able to cram into a line, as this lick from the intro to “Don't Throw Your Love On Me So String” indicates:

However, he was not averse to going “outside” in terms of note choice, and seemed to have a particular affinity for the augmented (R 3 #5) triad – this chord is notable for having each of its intervals a major third (four semitones) away from each other. Symmetry is a topic I'll address another day, but essentially anything symmetrical – augmented, diminished, whole tone scale, b5 interval – tends to have a jarring, abrasive sound that functions almost as a warning light going off in the mind. Augmented triads feature in his intros, particularly in his signature track “Stormy Monday”, and I would be remiss if I didn't share this ear catching turnaround lick from Stormy Monday with you:

As you can see, this is just an augmented triad shaped moved up and down the fretboard, catching a large number of “wrong” noted before resolving back to a chord tone. Be sparing with this though, this is probably the kind of thing you can only play once a a gig...

Although the basis of T-Bone's style was the minor pentatonic, he was adept a extending this basic framework with the addition of the 2^nd, 6^th, b5 and major 3^rd degrees, creating the “hybrid”blues scale which, let's be honest, we all use even though there doesn't seem to be an official name for it.. (Music Theory, meet Blues.. hey, Theory.. where did you run off to!?!) and here's a lick which demonstrates how naturally he was able to integrate these notes:

Now, you'll have heard this before, because it's also used in the intro to Johnny B.Goode, and everyone's heard Johnny B. Goode! This is what I mean about him being influential – he's the guy Chuck Berry stole that from!

Turning to chords, there's a lot of stuff that T-Bone invented (or at least popularised – in a style of music like blues where it's very much an oral tradition it's next to impossible to truly say who “invented” anything!) that any aspiring blues player needs to check out – don't forget, even in blues, you need to be able to set up a groove and accompany the singer, and plodding out the same Chuck Berry boogie shuffle in every song is going to get old very quickly.

T-Bone had an affinity for the dominant 9^th (written as 9 for short – so G9, C9 etc) – R 3 5 b7 9. I've shown it here with it's root on the A string, and this shape is actually derived from a C shape.

He would tend to pair this with a technique sometimes called the “Gospel Slide” or the “6/9 Slide”. Basically what you do is take the notes on the thinnest 3 strings, slide them up a tone, and then back. If you're starting with a C9, that means you start with a 3^rd fret barre across the G, B & E strings giving you Bb (b7) D (9) and G (5). You slide that up a tone and get C ® E (3) and A (6 or 13). This averages out as giving you R 3 5 b7 9 13 – a dominant 13 chord without ever having to play a whole dominant 13 shape. Clever! He does the same idea on the D, G and B strings with an E root voicing but note that only the D and B string notes are slid, as if you slide the G you end up with a #11 which won't fit the sound we're after.

(If you want to see this demonstrated, check out the YouTube practice Vlog)

So there we have it, a potted history and style analysis of an often overlooked but crucial artist in the evolution of blues guitar. This has been a real eye opener and I've come out with a new respect for his abilities – maybe T-Bone spent a little time in negotiations with a certain horned individual down at the crossroads at midnight! See you next month for the Iceman himself, Albert Collins.

Why I Suck, & What I'm Doing About It - Progress Report #4: April, T-Bo...

Why I Suck... Progress Report #3 – B.B. King

This was it. This was the biggy. Mr. Riley B. King, the King of the Blues himself – B. B. (Blues Boy) King! Armed with a tuxedo and a shiny Gibson 335 (the ever faithful Lucille), this man carved himself a place in history – even the normies out there, those non-musos and non-blues fans have heard of this guy. Christ, he played Glastonbury 2011 (remember that? Remember Glastonbury? Remember... outside?)

I've dealt with the extraordinary man and his equally extraordinary career in a previous post, so this time out I'm going to focus on the technique, the licks and his overall musical approach. I'm going to break this down into three categories – 1) major and minor pentatonic 2) arpeggios 3) quirks! So.. let's dive in!

Major and minor pentatonics – firstly, unlike his namesakes Freddie and Albert, BB's style was largely based around the major pentatonic. The classic “BB box” was centred on the root note on the B string under the first finger, with easy access to the 2^nd falling neatly under the third finger allowing a bend up to the major 3^rd. Equally, the 5^th scale degree is easily accessible by the third finger, allowing a bend up to the 6^th and back (a trick BB would often do when playing a turnaround and nailing the V chord), as well as those characteristic 5^th to root resolutions. Some example licks are below:

This box pattern also has the benefit of being able to shift handily into minor pentatonic – the b3 falls nicely under the third finger, able to be bent up to the 4^th (or even b5 if you're feeling adventurous). The presence of the 2^nd nearby allows you to easily get both minor and major 3rds, as well as being able to bend in between them – the “blues curl” quarter tone bend.

Arpeggios – BB was wont to break out the odd jazzy lick now and again, and my first encounter with this was whilst transcribing “Every Day I Have The Blues” (key Bb) from “Live At The Regal”. In the first solo, he pulls out something very tasty in the turnaround – making his way down the I chord, followed by a very tasty inverted dominant 13^th V chord (F13) arpeggio! Another trick used elsewhere in the album (Please Love Me), he plays over a blues in Eb, and over the V (Bb) chord he plays an arpeggio of the ii (Fm). Fm is comprised of F (root) Ab (b3) C (5). When played over a Bb root, however, these notes translate to 5^th (F) b7 (Ab) 9^th © - giving the overall impression of a Bb9! Whether he was operating on a purely intuitive level or whether he had perhaps a little more theoretical knowledge than he liked to let on, BB King was a wily old fox with a beautiful taste in note choice. I've tabbed out both the licks below:

Quirks! - the main BB King-ism that springs to mind is the famous “stinger. This is simply a high root note, often played on the change to the IV chord. Although notable by it's absence on the entirety of “Live At The Regal”, it does crop up on the iconic blues standard, “The Thrill Is Gone”. This track is in B minor, the intro solo played around the 7^th and 12^th frets, but in the main solo he leaps up to the 19^th fret as the chord changes up to the Em.

Like the other players we've examined so far, BB was not afraid to stick to one note – in fact, on "Worry Worry", he plays the same bend (B up to C, 2 to b3 in the song's key of A) no fewer than twenty consecutive times. TWENTY. This is a man who is unafraid to stick to his guns when he feels he's on a good note!

So, this has been a very informative month for me, I've thoroughly enjoyed wrapping my ear and fingers around the licks of one of the undisputed masters of blues guitar. Having gone so in depth with him, I've come to understand much more instinctively just WHY he's so highly regarded. There's a lot more to the BB King style than just pentatonics, and I'm VERY glad to have finally got around to this step in paying my dues!

See you all next month for spot of T-Bone Walker...

Why I Suck... Progress Report #2 – Freddie King

Sandwiched between the better known Albert and the regal BB, Freddie is arguably the least known of the Three Kings of blues. And while Albert's approach was smooth and effortless with a touch of funk, and the tuxedo-clad BB was stately and genteel, Freddie's approach (both vocal and guitar) was earthy and gritty.

Born September 3 1934, the young Freddie King began playing guitar at age 6, encouraged by his uncle and his mother. In 1949 his family made the move from Dallas, Texas to Chicago's South Side, and Fred (as he was known at that point) began exploring the native blues scene in the city. By 1952, the 18 year old king was working in a steel mill during the day and playing as a sideman with bands like the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. He would gradually work his way up as the 1950s progressed to playing with stalwarts like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, but was consistently rejected by the iconic Chess record label for sounding too like BB King vocally.

(Personally, I would take that as a huge compliment, as for all the attention BB's guitar playing gets, he was an astonishing singer, but there we go..)

Eventually, in 1960, Freddie King was signed to Federal Records, and after his first single “Have You Ever Loved A Woman”, he went on to record his signature tune “Hideaway” which was a runaway success, hitting #5 in the blues charts but also #29 in the pop charts. This has become a true blues standard, covered by Eric Clapton on the iconic “Beano” album he recorded with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and more or less every interview I've ever read with any high profile blues player has mentioned them spending time learning it. During his time at Federal, King also worked with soul/ R&B stars James Brown, Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson.

In 1966 his contract with Federal expired and from 1967 Freddie King was on nearly constant tour, playing over 300 dates most years. The constant touring – not helped by Freddie's habit of consuming Bloody Mary cocktails in lieu of actual meals – sadly took its toll on his health, however, and in 1976 he began developing stomach ulcers. By the end of that year he would be dead from a combination of this and acute pancreatitis, at the age of 42. He left behind his wife, Jessie Burnett, and seven children.

So that's the history. What about his playing?

My take, after 29 days studying his licks, is that of the Three Kings, Freddie is probably the closest to a rock player in phrasing. If, like me, your main influences have been bluesy rock players like Slash, Hendrix etc, Freddie's style is not too far removed. That's not to say he's not without his tricks though- he was very fond of the prebend (check out the intro solo on “Going Down”) and was adept at using both up and down string bends in his solos. This is a tricky technique to get to grips with, but worth practicing as it's a key part of the blues vocabulary. He also had a signature technique of slowly releasing a downward bend while giving it heavy vibrato – to try this, bend the string without picking as you would for a normal prebend. Then pick and slowly release the bend but give the note vibrato as you go – it's tricky as hell to begin with, but the effect is worth it!

Freddie was also a fingerpicker – according to Wikipedia, he would use a thumb pick and a metal fingerpick on his index finger (similar to what a banjo player would use) – and this allows him to “jump” strings and get wider interval leaps that spice up his licks. He was also fond of blending major and minor pentatonics, and would regularly bring the 2^nd degree of the scale in along side the regular minor pentatonic (R b3 4 5 b7).

To wind things up, I've tabbed out a couple of his licks that I think are indicative of his style.

But don't stop there – dive in and give him a listen! It speaks to his influence as a guitar player that one of the songs covered on the first G3 tour back in 1997 (Satriani, Vai, Eric Johnson) was his proto-heavy rock song, “Going Down”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0Km1XYXI3k

And Freddie King's original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_ONyukSLqA

So while the whole world is stuck in coronavirus lockdown, keep calm and play the blues!

Bari - Neil Zaza Guitar Cover

Why I Suck, & What I'm Doing About It! Progress Report #1 - January, Albert King

Known as the Velvet Bulldozer, Albert King is probably one of the most influential blues players ever – but I'm ashamed to say that up until the start of this year, he'd never directly influenced me! So this has been a month well spent filling in skills I should have been developing from the early days... and what have I learnt?

OK, well, first off I've learned The Albert King Lick. Once you've heard this once, you'll hear it in every single song he does. And with good reason, it's a cool as hell little run down.

The easiest place to spot this is in his classic “I'll Play The Blues For You” - that lick is played after practically every vocal line. But it's there in everything - “Born Under A Bad Sign”, “Oh Pretty Woman”, “Crosscut Saw”, everything. Now, listening closely to it you can hear that the fingering given.. doesn't quite sound right.

There's a simple reason for this. Albert King did not play in anything remotely resembling standard tuning. Left handed, but playing a right handed instrument (usually a Gibson Flying V) upside down, he favoured tuning to either C#-G#-B-E-G#-C# or open E-minor (C-B-E-G-B-E) or open F (C-F-C-F-A-D) depending on who you listen to. As a result,many of his licks – although they do translate to standard tuning – would have been fingered significantly differently.

It's also worth tuning in really closely to his absolute and utter mastery of string bending. Now, some of this will be down to his use of light gauge strings (0.009 – 0.050) with the reduced tension resulting from the dropped tuning making it physically easier for some of the wider bends, but listen closely to almost any solo and you'll hear (especially in the turnarounds) a real mastery of the microtone. Albert (I'm not going to refer to him as King, as we've got another two of those to look at) was adept at not just manipulating the ambiguity in between the minor and major 3rds, but also between the 4^th and flat 5^th, the classic “blue note”.

Next, note choice. Albert was almost entirely minor pentatonic, and the “Albert King Lick” sits firmly in first position. However, for soloing, he (like B.B. King) he preferred to move into the highest four notes of second position. To carry on with the example of “I'll Play The Blues For You”, in G minor pentatonic – the four middle notes are F, G, Bb and C on the 3^rd and 5^th frets on the D and G strings. For the solo, he shifts those four notes up to the 6^th and 8^th frets on the B and high E strings.

To get that characteristic Albert King sound, hit the root G (8^th fret B) and then move up to the 4^th, C, (8^th fret E) bent up to the 5^th, D, (whole tone bend). Albert would regularly pick the string in between notes as well, getting those characteristic microtonal “curl” bends that are so inherent to the blues.

In fact, “I'll Play The Blues For You” is probably the best track to get yourself started on transcribing and analysing his solos – the licks are clear, concise and his solo has a real story structure to it: call, response, call, conclusion. I'd encourage anyone who's interested in trying to improve their phrasing to start there, and with that in mind, here's the basic chord structure:

// Gm / Gm / Gm / Gm / Cm / Cm / Gm / Gm / Bb / D / Cm / Cm / Gm / Gm //

As you can see, this is actually a 14 bar blues! For the most part the song follows a 12 bar structure, but you'll notice the addition of the slightly dissonant chords in the turnaround – those of you versed in theory will recognise Bb as being the relative major, whereas the D should technically a minor, the major 3^rd (F#) being present gives it a tense, almost harmonic minor vibe. So without further ado, here's a YouTube link to the song, switch on your ear and happy transcribing!