History Of The Blues
Have you heard the story of when W.C. Handy first saw some “lean, loose jointed negro” while waiting for a train in 1903 at Tutwiler, Mississippi, playing “the weirdest music I ever heard.” This was some early evidence of “blues music” as it would later become known. He goes on to say… “As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists…” indicating the early use of slide in blues guitar style, which dominated early “country blues” as it would be known. Read more here…
Learn To Play Blues Guitar
Whether you’re a new guitarist or have been playing a long time, everyone gets around to learning to play blues guitar sooner or later. It’s great music to play on guitar especially if you like lead improvisation. And learning blues guitar is relatively easy. There’s lots of room for experimenting and because blues is pretty much improvisational, there’s not really one way to play. It’s mostly about the feeling you put into it. And we have lots of blues guitar lessons to help you get started. Read more here…
Blues Songs Everyone Should Know
If you’re looking for blues guitar songs to play you’ve got a lot to choose from. Blues “standards” are everywhere and if you want to hit a jam, then you better have a few of them under your belt. The blues songs you’ll need to know depend on the type of jam you are going to. If it’s a “rocky” blues jam you may need certain songs. And if it’s a bit more sophisticated type of jam with better players, you better know some of the less common songs. But there are clearly a few songs you’ll hear sooner or later at every jam. Read more here…
The Best Guitars For The Blues
If you already play guitar you know how important having a guitar you really like is to your playing. And of course, what works for you may not work for me. And even within a particular guitar type the guitars themselves may be quite different. I play Fender Stratocasters but I’ve picked up many other Strats that just don’t feel good to me. I like mine with a certain feel. I’m sure you like your guitars with a certain feel too. And don’t get hung up on using guitars your blues heroes play. Find what is right for you and let’s you connect your own soul to the blues inside you. That’s the key to great blues playing. Read more here…
Learning From A Blues Concert
Over the years I’ve been to many concerts, both blues concerts and others. As a guitar player and music lover, these concerts have often been big inspirations to me. I’ve got to study other guitar players and got to see how they play a song and what equipment they use. Plus just listening to the music is also a rush. If you’re a guitar player I bet you may see a blues concert in much the same way as I do. As a musician we don’t watch concerts in the same way as the average music lover. We tend to pay more attention to the “how” instead of just the “what.” By that I mean if you are a musician, you tend to watch the musical interplay between the musicians on stage, and often think about how they put the set list together and exactly how they play songs from an arrangement point of view. You watch for chord voicings and guitar sounds and what role the musicians are playing in the song. We want to see how it’s done. Read more here…
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T-bone Walker
The Great Blues Guitarists
There’s been a very long line of blues guitarists over the years. And depending on how you define “the blues” you can pull in guitarists who played many other styles as well. In fact the early musicians of the Mississippi delta played a lot more than just the blues. As you can imagine, if you wanted to make a living as a musician, or just some spare change, you had to play what the people wanted to hear. That meant a guitarist of the delta often played minstrel songs, popular songs of the day, and spiritual songs from the church. As blues become part of popular music in the south, and as a musician became known for certain songs, they played more blues because that’s what the people wanted to hear. And once they started making records, and those records made it to the local juke box, blues became more popular and so did the musicians who recorded it. Read more here…
