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...