Why I Suck... Series 2, Progress Report 2 - Albert King Revisited

 Back to the Velvet Bulldozer! You can't argue with Albert King and his mastery of microtonal string bends and his ability to achieve so much expression with so few notes.

Having covered The Albert King Lick right back at the start of this project (in the world that was, back before R numbers and PPE were everyday concepts...), this time I'm going to look a little deeper into both the man's playing and history, as his career path is not exactly what you'd expect from a “rock star”.

For a start, his name wasn't actually Albert King. Born Albert Nelson on April 25 1823 in Indianola, Mississipi, (the same city which gave birth to B.B. King) young Albert's early life is something of a mystery – largely because the adult Albert was adept at crafting a media-friendly backstory, claiming at various times to be B.B. King's half brother, and going as far as naming his guitar “Lucy” in emulation of B.B. King's legendary “Lucille”.

He began in the same way as many blues musicians, constructing a “diddley bow” guitar – for those of you unfamiliar, this is basically a bit of wire stretched over a plank of wood and wrapped around a bottle at one end, played with a slide. I built one myself back in 2012 and I recommend it as a great way to get in touch with the roots of guitar playing.

The next step was a cigar box guitar – essentially a more portable version of the diddley bow, this used a cigar box for the body, a piece of bush for the neck and a length of broom wire for the string. In time, Albert was able to upgrade to a real guitar, bought for $1.25. He cut his teeth playing with gospel groups – most notably the Harmony Kings – but became inspired by the work of Delta blues artists like Elmore James and Blind Lemon Jefferson and turned over entirely to playing the blues himself.

An important part of his style came from King being left handed, but playing the guitar flipped over – this may well have influenced his choice of the Flying V guitar in later years, due to its symmetrical body shape – and using an unusual open tuning, (or more likely series of open tunings) variously described as open Cm, C#m, open F, frequently without the lowest string being used. This is why The Albert King Lick never sounds 100% right when played on a conventional guitar! He also used very light strings (for the standards of the day) – 0.009” to 0.050” according to luthier Dan Erlewine – helping with the soaring string bends and microtonal control that characterise his playing style.

Albert's musical career included a few false starts in the mid 50's with small time record deals that failed to really go anywhere – interestingly, he was a regular attraction alongside Chuck Berry & Ike Turner – but his first hit, “Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong” came in 1961 (keep in mind, this would have placed him at 37-38 at this point) on the small Bobbin record label, but his real breakthrough came in 1966 when he moved to Memphis, signing to the Stax record label and developing the smooth, soulful, funky sound that he would become associated with. Most of these recordings feature the Stax house band Booker T & The MG's, including legendary session player Steve Cropper on rhythm guitar, but that's a story in its own right. During this period he would record most of his most famous songs - “Born Under A Bad Sign” (written by Booker T and William Bell), “I'll Play The Blues For You”, “Cold Sweat”, “The Hunter”, “Crosscut Saw” (notable for lyric “I'm a crosscut saw baby, drag me across your log” which is utterly impossible to pull off with a straight face) to name but a few.

Interestingly, as the 70s dawned, Albert was keen to embrace new musical trends to stay current and commercial – this is something we often overlook in our quest for “authenticity”, the fact that these guys knew damn well they relied on record sales to pay the rent, so the Kings, Buddy Guy, T Bone Walker etc were always happy to adapt their styles to the trends of the time. Chasing commercial success at the cost of “artistic integrity” is not a conversation you need to have when you've come from picking cotton to pay the rent, and Albert himself did that as well as working construction (including driving a bulldozer, a possible origin of his nickname) and many other menial jobs to support himself while building a musical career.

The Stax years were really where his career peaked, and after the label went bust in 1975 he moved first to Utopia records and recorded three albums, none of which were particularly successful but did include a duet with Rory Gallagher (who is well overdue his own article) on 1977's “As The Years Go Passing By”. In 1978 he moved to Tomato Records and recorded a mix of old and new material, but the late 70's were a disappointing period commercially. A short-lived retirement followed but in 1984 he recorded “I'm In A Phone Booth Baby” which was nominated for a Grammy, riding the early 80s blues revival that artists like Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan were pushing. He continued to tour regularly, remaining a major force in blues,but ironically (sadly) he never achieved the level of commercial success that those artists who held him up as an influence did. He died of heart attack on December 21 1992, in the midst of planning a tour with B.B King and Bobbly “Blue” Bland.

Undeniably he is an architect of the blues, having influenced so many players with his unique and instantly identifiable playing style, but for someone who has become a touchstone of what it means to be a blues guitarist it's interesting and not a little sad to see how precarious his career was at different points. It's also a stark contrast to realise that his breakthrough years came with Stax at 42-43 (something that would be impossible in the youth obsessed pop industry) whilst another of the Three Kings, Freddie, was dead at 42! Although we often lump the Three Kings of blues together, their careers and stories are radically different.

So there's the potted history, on to the licks!

I've taken three licks which I think characterise his style.

In this first example, taken from “Blues Power”, you can see how he approaches the root note G from the 5^th below, following the Dm-shape Gm arpeggio – this is a very signature blues move, having the effect of “serving up” the root note to the listener. This is followed by a soaring held bend on the C bent up to D (4^th til 5^th of the scale) before a quick burst of 16^th notes running down the Gm arpeggio and facilitating a position shift to Gm pentatonic shape 1.

This second example is taken from his signature song “Born Under A Bad Sign”, in C#m, starting with a quick stinging move from the E to the C# - b3 to root – followed by a swift run down the C#m minor pentatonic including a neat little slide on the G string from the 11^th to 13^th frets and back – F# to G# (4^th to 5^th) and back again, puling off to the b3 and finishing on the b7. Notice that like the first lick, this has a long held first note followed by a burst of energy.

The third and final example is in the style of the instrumental “Cold Sweat” in Dm and illustrates a signature string bending technique, bending the 4^th (G, on the 15^th fret E string) up a tone to the 5^th, then bringing the bend ever so slightly flat, repicking it and bringing it down. In true Albert King style, he milks this idea over the course of two bars – although frequently he would play almost an entire 12 bar chorus just remorselessly milking one lick – before finishing with a pull off and a double struck root note, played with a solid chunk of vibrato to really make it sting.

Thanks for reading, and next month we'll be shifting styles and centuries as we tackle the Canoness of Shred herself, the YouTube sensation Sophie Lloyd! See you then, stay safe and happy practicing.

Why I Suck... Series 2, Progress Report 1 - Neil Zaza!

Ohhhh, I've been looking forward to this.

So, right, January. In a pandemic. Things SUCK. So I've chosen to treat myself by spending the month transcribing one of my absolute guitar heroes, a master of melody and perfectly placed shred technique – and it would seem, the guitar worlds' best kept secret! Yes – this month, it's Neil Zaza!

Now, I first became aware of him around 2007, through stumbling across various YouTube covers of his hit “I'm Alright” - I thought it had a really cool riff, eventually got around to learning and transcribing the whole thing in about 2015, and thought no more of it until a couple of years ago. Cleaning day, I thought I'd stick some music on to pass the time, didn't fancy anything in my library, so on a whim I typed “Neil Zaza” into YouTube...

I think the best part of an hour had passed before I actually remembered I was supposed to be cleaning. Soaring melodies, blistering technique – not to mention his insane shred cover of A-ha's “Take On Me” (which I have co-opted to be something of a trademark for the streaming bedroom gigs that have helped keep me sane these past ten months) – I was completely hooked.

And yet- I've been playing guitar and consuming guitar magazines, both UK and US since 1994, and never ONCE have I heard of this guy, despite him being absolutely on the level of a Vai, a Satriani, an Eric Johnson. So it's high time I did something to redress the balance.

Right, a quick bio and the we'll dip into some of the licks and patterns that characterise his playing. All the examples I'll be showing are from his breakthrough 1996 album Sing, so we'll only be looking at his history up until then (partly because that gives me another excuse to revisit him). Born 1964 in Akron, Ohio, the young Neil was entranced by music from a young age and picked a guitar aged 10, largely inspired by Eddie Van Halen and Neal Schon (amongst others). He would go on to cement his technique studying classical guitar at the University of Akron under Stephen Aron, and in 1987 formed the rock band “Zaza”, who manged a hit with the rock ballad “Maybe Tomorrow”:

This represented the peak of the bands' success, however, and they split up after recording 1991's “Party With The Big Boys” - and from there Neil began his solo career. 1992 saw the release of his first album, “Two Hands, One Heart”, followed by “Thrills And Chills” a year later. By now, momentum was beginning to pick up with his career, and he was invited to perform with Hartford Symphony Orchestra, performing the tracks “1492” and a guitar interpretation of “West Side Story”, and in 1996 was a featured performer at the Montreal Guitar Festival. The big breakthrough came the following year with 1997's “Sing”, which contained covers of “Silent Night” and Van Morrisons “Crazy Love”, as well as the live version of the “Thrills and Chills” track “Melodia”... but it was track number three, “I'm Alright” which was to prove the absolute monster hit, it's ultra-catchy riff even inspiring dance remixes and ring tones and becoming one of those “must learn” riffs for aspiring guitarists. Have a listen and see why:

And....

And.......

Look how young I look! X-D

In fact, Dave The Rock Band version 2.0 performed this live a couple of times to audiences of civilians who had no idea about Neil Zaza or indeed, any form of instrumental music, but still remarked that we'd started the set off with something really catchy, and that we should record it....

Anyway, from that point, the Zaza rollercoaster has continued to lasting success, and as my slightly obsessive Instagram stalking of him confirms, he's still going strong, busy in the studio composing and recording new music – but that's where we'll leave the history lesson for now, because (as with Hendrix, Clapton, SRV and others that I've covered in the blog) I intend to come back and revisit this brilliant inspiring player, and I want an excuse to spend another month burying myself in his exquisite melodies and techniques!

So, let's take a look at some of the signature 'Za moves and techniques:

In this first example, we'll look at Neil's use of open voice arpeggios. These are all over his playing (and Eric Johnson is a fan too), and with good reason – great fun to play, sound cool and manage to get away from the slightly predictable sound of a regular arpeggio. Now in a normal close voice arpeggio, the notes are always a third apart – either in the order R 3 5, 3 5 R, or 5 R 3. For an open voicing, we upend this order, playing R 5 3, 3 R 5, or 5 3 R. Because of this re-ordering, the last note of the arpeggio ends up being an octave higher than it would normally be, and the bigger interval leaps sound much cooler and more ear-catching. Check out the tab below:

Here I've tabbed out an E major chord – first using root and 5^th with the 3^rd boosted an octave up, then 3^rd in the bass followed by the root with the 5^th up an octave, and then finally 5^th in the bass, then 3^rd and root up an octave. The next pattern does the same for minor chords. I've tabbed out these examples using the A, D and B strings as they seem to be the fingerings Neil himself prefers, but you should look at them on all string groups to find what suits you best.

The next two licks are lifted from “I'm Alright”, showing Neil's approach to pedal tone licks – both of these patterns are rooted on the note of E, with intervals from the major scale played against them (note the tap and slide in the second lick – tapping for melody, not speed!). I recommend using hybrid picking for the first lick, picking the G string with the plectrum and using the middle fingers for the B and E strings.

Now, of course, while Neil's genius for melody is really what sets him apart, when he wants to put the pedal to the metal he can shred with the best of them. These last two patterns are ones that I've seen cropping up a few times in differing tracks. Both are in E, a favoured key of his, but try them in every key.

This is a major scale sequenced in groups of 4, and you should try this both descending (as tabbed) and ascending by reversing the pattern. I also recommend trying them with both picked and legato techniques

This last is a sextuplet (six notes to a beat) idea using a variation on the three note per string major scale fingering which Neil seems to favour, but note the five note group just before the bar – this is unlikely to be a conscious variation, just a by product of Neil gunning it and trying to hit the G# (3^rd) on the downbeat. Take the same approach and the timing will come to you.

I do urge you to go check this guy out, to me he's right up there in the pantheon of instrumental guitar greats and I really cannot understand why he isn't better known is a mystery to me, but I can guarantee you're going to enjoy his stuff – it's impossible not to!

Stay safe and sane out there, and see you next month.

Why I Suck.. Progress Report #12 - Stevie Ray Vaughan

So as 2020 draws to a close – fireworks displays above empty streets saying everything that needs to be said about The Year From Hell – so ends my Great Experiment, transcribing a different blues player each month. It's been a long road, from Albert King back in January to this month's player the mighty Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can still remember getting my copy of “Texas Flood” back in the 90s and as soon as I heard that unique glassy Strat tone, that accuracy and attack, and even then realising “Ah... this is what all the fuss is about!”. Even on his first album, it was all there – ballsy doublestops, intricate open position blues scale work, the sublime shimmering chords of “Lenny”, the relentless energy and attack of tracks like “Testify” and “Rude Mood”... it was a real eye (ear?) opener.

As with Hendrix last month, there is a tremendous amount of information available out there about Stevie's life, so in order to get this post up and done before the end of the month I'm going to limit the scope of this article to a brief synopsis of his life and playing only as far as the “Texas Flood” album itself – when I revisit him later on, hopefully I'll be able to point out the ways his playing developed over his career.

Stephen Ray Vaughan was born in Dallas, Texas on October 3^rd 1954, and first began playing guitar age 7, influenced by his elder brother Jimmie. The family moved regularly as Stevie's father was an asbestos worker, a job that entailed a great deal of travelling, and also struggled with alcohol abuse and fits of temper that sometimes resulted in violence towards those around him, including his family. Both Stevie and his elder brother Jimmie were affected by this, and both sought a refuge in playing music. Jimmie (as we looked at earlier this year) was the first to pick up the guitar while Stevie tried a variety of different instruments including drums and sax before settling on the guitar and getting his first at age 7. So began a career learning songs by Jimi Hendrix, Albert King and many others poring over records and picking out the licks painstakingly by ear. By 1970 Vaughan had made his way through the usual collection of early bands, and his command of the blues had impressed bass player Tommy Shannon who would later become the bassist for Double Trouble. In February of that year one of Stevie's first significant career breakthroughs cam, playing with the nine piece soul/ R&B band The Liberations as ZZ Top invited them to play at the Adolphus Hotel. At 16 Stevie found himself jamming with ZZ Top, and the performance was by all accounts spectacular.

The '70s would see Stevie's career gradually move forwards, albeit not without a few false starts. He formed his own band, Blackbird, and relocated from Dallas to Austin, and in 1973 joined the Nightcrawlers, who toured across the South – usually with little success, however. They split up after being abandoned by their manager in Mississipi – although this phase did see some of Stevie's first songwriting efforts, including “Dirty Pool” which would eventually end up on “Texas Flood”. The next stop was popular and regularly gigging band The Cobras, with whom he would record the single “Other Days” and jam with many of his heroes – Albert King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and others – and move on to form his own band, Triple Threat Revue, in 1977. When singer Lou Ann Barton quit the band in 1979, they renamed themselves Double Trouble after the Otis Rush song. In 1981 Tommy Shannon joined, replacing previous bass player Jack Newhouse, completing the power trio lineup with which Stevie would find such success.

Success came at a price, however. Stevie had struggled with alcohol and substance abuse since the age of six, in on December 5 1979 he was arrested after a police officer saw him snorting cocaine before a gig. At this point the band were opening for blues legend Muddy Waters, who remarked “Stevie could perhaps be the greatest guitar player that ever lived, but he won't live to get 40 years old if he doesn't leave that white powder alone. “. He got away with probation, but these issues would dog his career.

Double Trouble got their next break playing the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1982, where they caught the attention of established artists David Bowie and Jackson Brown. Entranced by Stevie's explosive style, Bowie asked Stevie to play on his upcoming album “Let's Dance”. With SRV's distinctive glassy tone on six of the eight tracks, this became Bowie's most successful album to date. This breakthrough, combined with free recording time from Jackson Browne at his Downtown Studios and a record contract set up by producer John Hammond led to Stevie and Double Trouble recording the entire “Texas Flood” album in just two days over Thanksgiving weekend 1982.

We'll pick up the SRV story when we revisit him later on this year, but as “Texas Flood” was my album of choice for studying, we'll hold there and start taking a look at some of his licks, and try and get an understanding of the searing, explosive playing that caused such a sensation.

This first lick is taken from the title track, “Texas Flood” and takes the classic T-Bone Walker opening phrase, bending the G and barring across the B and high E, and spicing up the basic pentatonic framework by adding the 2^nd (A) and flat 2^nd (Ab) into the mix and finishing up with a bend on the flat 3^rd (6^th fret E), first up a whole tone to the 4^th (C ) and then a semitone to the major 3^rd (B).

This next example is a flurry of sextuplets taken from the absolutely gorgeous instrumental “Lenny”, using the E blues scale and finishing with a pianistic hammer on from minor to major 3^rd on the 10^th to 11^th frets on the A string, played against the 4^th (A) on the 12^th fret. Listen to the track itself because the attack and precision SRV plays this with is simply breathtaking.

 

This final example shows some of SRV's open string work on a blues in E, in this case “Pride & Joy”. He starts with classic John Lee Hooker style open E minor pentatonic, sliding up to the 4^th fret G, letting the the flat 7^th (D, 3^rd fret B string) ring against the open high E, before barrelling through a flurry of triplets including a semitone bend on the 4^th (A, 2^nd fret G string) to imply the b5 of the blues scale, and finishing off woth a trill on the G between minor 3^rd (open G) and major 3^rd (G#, 1^st fret G).

We'll be returning to SRV later on in 2021, but next up is another of my heroes, the melodic master that is Neil Zaza! Till then stay safe, stay sane – we might be stuck in lockdown but that doesn't stop you playing guitar.

2021 - New Year, New Practice Plan!

 Well, 2020 sucked, plain and simple. I count myself fortunate that I've not lost anyone to COVID or had it myself, and that I've managed to keep operating during the lockdowns, but it's still been pretty miserable. And I'm well aware that there are many, many people out there who've been far worse affected. However, for me personally, there was one resounding success story – my attempt to rejig my practice routine, so rather than studying exotic scales and arpeggios which I would never end up actually using, I used my ractice time to study and transcribe some of the great blues players out there and improve my feel. I finally got down to “paying my dues” picking out licks from the greats by ear and it has been enormously helpful and enormously enjoyable. I managed to do the entirety of Clapton's Bluesbreakers “Beano” album, B.B. King's “Live At The Regal”, and a fair old chunk of SRV's “Texas Flood” and a whole host of other stuff, by Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield, Albert and Freddie King etc.

So, I'm carrying on with the plan! Some folks are getting revisited, as you'll see, and some new non-blues names have been added to the list, for no other reason than I like them! Some of these players also have the advantage of being alive, and active on social media, so I'll be reaching out to try and interview them. Whether or not they get back to me.. well, we'll see!

Without further ado then, here's the plan for 2021:

January – Neil Zaza

February – Albert King Pt. II

March – Sophie Lloyd

April – Freddie King Pt. II

May – Pete Honore

June – B B King Pt. II

July – Jeff Beck

August – Eric Clapton Pt. II (Cream)

September – Jimmy Page

October – Hendrix Pt. II

November – Joe Bonamassa

December – Stevie Ray Vaughan Pt. II

As you can see, broadening the horizons, covering some big names and a few YouTube stars, so looking forward to seeing what I can learn from this year! What are your guitar ambitions for 2021? Whatever your level, there's always ways to improve, so good luck and stay safe out there!

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!