A trend popularized by Eric Clapton in the '60s and continued by Stevie Ray Vaughan in the '80s was the slashing, searing, single-note line. Ever since, this has become a cherished goal for all aspiring blues guitar heroes.

But well before Clapton arrived on the scene, blues guitarists were using double-stop lines to fatten up their lead work. In fact, Sylvester Weaver, the first African-American blues guitarist to be recorded, waxed a classic of inestimable importance in 1923 with “Guitar Rag.” 

A slide piece in open E, the track depends heavily on harmony in 3rds for the melody and fills. Contemporary lead guitarists would be well advised to follow Weaver’s pioneering example and use double-stops to fatten their chops.

Double-stops often operate in that middle ground between single notes and chords and regularly appear as 4ths, 5ths and 6ths in the blues, although 3rds derived from the diatonic scales are the most common.

Figure 1 shows dominant-flavored G Mixolydian double-stops on strings 3 and 2, but they may be accessed on any pair of consecutive strings with a slight fingering adjustment.

Figure 2 is similar to the head of “Shake Your Moneymaker” as recorded by electric slide deity Elmore James in 1961. 

Though it’s slide-based, this is also a hip riff when fingered conventionally as shown, and it belongs in any Blues 101 course.

Dig how merely flatting the major 3rd (B) on beat 1 of measure 1 (I chord) to the b3rd (Bb) on beat 1 of measure 2 (IV chord) – where it functions as the b7th leading tone of C – succinctly indicates the chord change, as the rest of the dyads remain the same.

The 3rd-b3rd (b7th) concept is further explored in Figure 3 in one of the all-time classic blues riffs. Countless tunes have employed this form and its variations. B.B. King was a particularly enthusiastic fan of its tonality-defining qualities. 

The hammer-on to the major 3rd (B) from D/Bb (5th and b3rd) in measure 1 is the apex of blues cool.

Figure 4 contains triplets implying a dominant 7th on beats 1–3 in measure 1 as favored by the legendary Lightnin’ Hopkins in many of his compositions. 

Check out how the chromatic sequence of dyads on strings 4 and 3 in measure 2 implies movement from the G major to G7. 

Inasmuch as this device exhibits a strong tendency to move forward to the IV or V chord, it’s suggested that you use it as a turnaround in measures 7 and 8 (I chord) of a 12-bar blues.

Thirds are the building blocks of many turnarounds, and Figure 5 exhibits a typically smooth pattern.

Contributing to this fluid characteristic is the fact that each double-stop contains the same relative interval all the way down the line. 

Skip James’ “I’m So Glad” and Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” both employed variations on this cadence.

It was the iconic blues guitarists who birthed the rock-star persona.

Robert Johnson, Son House, Lead Belly, Memphis Minnie, Charley Patton, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf… History has a way of deifying names such as these, ensuring that they’re spoken about in awed, reverent tones because of their innovative musical inspiration.

In one respect, this reverence is completely justified. These blues guitarists are among the founders of rock and roll, and of popular music as a whole. Without them there would be no Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, Samantha Fish or Gary Clark Jr., to name a handful of guitarists influenced by their music.

And so they are revered, not only for their music, guitar talents or songwriting abilities but also for the hard lives they led, which were more often than not painted into their music.

These legends of blues plied their craft during one of the ugliest periods of racial strife and economic disparity in America. Alcohol, drugs, crime and poverty were among the hardships that informed their music.

Lead Belly was a convicted murderer, Robert Johnson a serial womanizer. Son House was a hard-drinking ex-con, and boozy Memphis Minnie was known to hold her own in a fight.

Only a fool would mess with any of them.

The music itself often gets the hagiography treatment too, in a way that smooths its legacy and ignores the circumstances that bred it.

The likes of Lead Belly have been embraced as folk heroes by artists such as Bob Dylan, and by the most recent crop of new blues-rock bands, who have favored these older figures over the classic blues-rock explosion crowd of the 1960s, because they’re more authentic and raw.

Nirvana effectively turned the MTV generation on to Delta blues with their cover of Lead Belly’s “In the Pines”/“Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” But an artist like Lead Belly wasn’t trying to be restrained or virtuous. He was just working with the tools he had – that sparser sound he and his peers honed in the days before Marshall stacks and Fender Strats.

If Robert Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson had had access to an electric guitar, there’s every chance he would have cranked it all the way to 11, like the rock and roll stars who were to come.

Paying tribute to Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin recorded an amped up cover version of his 1930s composition “Travelling Riverside Blues” for BBC radio in 1969.

Featuring a blistering 12-bar solo and some textbook slide work, Jimmy Page tips his hat to the iconic bluesman.

In 1990, the band released this unique promo video for the song featuring live and archive footage cut with various Mississippi-themed scenes.

We can only guess what Robert Johnson himself would make of it…

Order Annye C. Anderson’s Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson here.

Robert Johnson’s masterful guitar technique is the stuff of legend, and his haunting vocal delivery was once described by Eric Clapton as “the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice.”

“I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Terraplane Blues,” “Love in Vain Blues,” “Hellhound on My Trail” and “Traveling Riverside Blues” are just a few of his songs that have become classic rock standards, covered by Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, Clapton, Lucinda Williams and Larkin Poe, to name a few.

Such covers would receive far more attention than their creator did in his short lifetime – he was born in 1911 and died at age 27 – but Johnson’s originals are conserved in the seminal 1990 compilation The Complete Recordings, the ground zero of recorded Delta blues.

“Robert Johnson was an incredible guitar player and singer,” blues guitarist Walter Trout says. “On these songs, he sounds like three guys, because he’s playing a bass line, a rhythm and slide leads, all at the same time. There are guys who can nail it note for note, but it’s lacking the spark of creativity.

“But to me, the reason he’s considered in a league of his own – among all those other guys like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton and Blind Willie Johnson – is because of his songs. They’re universal and they’re lasting and they’re classic.

“In the canon of the blues, his songs are really top of the heap. My favorite is ‘Love in Vain Blues.’ That one makes me weep. It tears me up. ‘Cross Road Blues’ is incredible too – the guitar playing and the singing.

“That whole thing about going to the crossroads and selling your soul to the devil. If you ever talked to B.B. King, he’d say, ‘No, that’s bullshit. The blues is beautiful, and beauty doesn’t come from the devil.’

“These songs were unknowingly instrumental in the creation of rock and roll. But one thing that’s kind of mind blowing when you hear Clapton and the Stones and all these people doing these unbelievable songs, is that the guy never made a dime.

“He was paid a total of 38 dollars. That’s what he made off these songs. Hopefully his family is receiving royalties.

“He’s another in a long line of originators of blues music who died basically penniless.” [Johnson allegedly died after being poisoned by the husband of one of his sexual conquests.]

“So that’s a real travesty about this music. Its impact worldwide is monumental, but the guys who originated it never, ever received what they were due. And they died having no idea that their music was going to become immortal.”

Order Annye C. Anderson’s Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson here.

When I began interviewing women guitarists in 2001, Del Rey topped my list of players to speak with.

Born Della Rey, she grew up in San Diego and started playing guitar at age four. By the time she hit her teens, Del had already discovered pre-war blues and been mentored by Mississippi blues legend Sam Chatmon.

Over the decades she has become adept in many blues guitar styles and in advanced ukulele technique.

Del is also one of the foremost experts on the history of women and guitar. When not touring or teaching, she conducts lectures on Women in American Music and Women with Guitar.

You started playing guitar at the age of four. Do you have any recollection of it?

Yes, I have a pretty good memory from even before that, but I really started to play seriously when I was introduced to the music of Memphis Minnie and when I met Sam Chatmon at 13.

I had been introduced to these Memphis Minnie Blues Classics volumes 1 and 2 [released in 1964 and 1967, respectively, on the Blues Classics label]. I had been listening to those and learning songs by ear, so when I saw Sam, I noticed he played in a style that had a lot in common with Memphis Minnie’s. It was that down-home, song-oriented style, rather than the heavy Delta style.

Why do you think there haven’t been more women guitarists?

I think there’s a ton of them that people just ignore, like Mary Osborne [active in jazz from the mid 1930s until her death in 1992]. Who knows about her? And she’s a great guitar player. You go through the history of jazz and her name never comes up.

Women were either actively discouraged from performing or had to consciously overcome so many boundaries that made it harder for them. 

Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, the founder of the American Guitar Society, was also a very influential performer. She published, like, 140 reference books. There were two Martin guitars named after her. She was very well known, all through the 1920s and ’30’s.

The history of jazz guitar should include Mary Osborne. A history of guitar in general should include Vahdah Olcott-Bickford. She is about as statured in that music as Memphis Minnie is in blues.

I mean, how can you make a cult figure of Robert Johnson, who recorded 30 sides, and ignore Memphis Minnie, who recorded 200? Get over it already!

The more I know about the 1920s and ’30s, the more informed I am about what’s going on now. That’s what I like about it. When I was a little girl, I didn’t know there were any other women guitar players, but my students now know about them. Girls today are so much more informed than girls of our generation, or our mothers’.

Do you find that there are more female guitarists now?

I think there’s an onset of everything female. Girls are just empowered to do whatever they want to do now. If they want to go out and get a job, they do that. 

If they want to be an artist of whatever kind, they can find a place to be that. 

It’s a good thing.

Browse Del Rey’s extensive catalog at Hobemian Records here.

Visit Del Rey’s website here.

For more information about Sue Foley, visit suefoley.com.

Rory Block remains one of the premier purveyors of acoustic blues. In addition to honors received over her lengthy career, she won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious Koko Taylor Award for Traditional Female Blues Artist in 2021 as well as the 2019 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Artist of the Year.

Taylor herself called her “Little Miss Dynamite.” Block loves to commemorate her heroes and predecessors, and to celebrate female empowerment. She’s recorded a host of tribute albums that pay homage to everyone from Robert Johnson to Bukka White to Bessie Smith.

On Ain’t Nobody Worried (Stony Plain), the third volume in her “Power Women of the Blues,” she takes a slightly different spin by honoring a variety of artists, rather than focusing on one in particular.

With her slide prowess, powerful voice and penchant for making a cover sound like her own song, Block is like an acoustic Bonnie Raitt.

One of the standout tracks on Ain’t Nobody Worried is “Love Has No Pride,” made famous by Raitt, who Block calls “the best singer on Earth.” Block’s take on Elizabeth Cotten’s iconic “Freight Train” is another guitar-centric gem, and her driving version of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is a cool inclusion because of how well the 1988 hit flows seamlessly alongside older material, such as Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

Most of the song selections are drawn from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, which is still relatively recent compared to the folk blues and old-timey music Block generally interprets.

The sole original cut here is a stripped-down and refreshing version of her most popular song, “Lovin’ Whiskey.” Block’s rock-solid rhythm playing anchors the entire affair, and all of the guitar overdubs are her own. The same is true of the vocals, some of which one would swear were done by a group of singers.

Block even plays bass and percussion here. Girl power, indeed!

Why are you so dedicated to playing purely acoustic blues?

The blues was invented on acoustic instruments, so the only way I really hear early American country blues is on an acoustic guitar. You can do whatever you want, but in my opinion the acoustic guitar is the most perfectly suited instrument for the music.

Is your signature Martin OM-40 from 2004 still your main instrument?

It’s my only instrument. I’m a Martin guitar freak. I’ve seen a lot of wonderful instruments, but in my view Martin has a mystical edge above everything else on the planet – the universe! They are magnificent instruments, unmatched in their historical significance.

Before I owned a Martin guitar, they invited me to pick one off the wall at a NAMM Show. Of course I was floored! I chose an OM-28V [Vintage] because it was the right size and feel. Later I was honored with my own signature model.

Dick Boak and I sat down in a restaurant and sketched out the design ideas on dinner napkins. We made the neck a black-top highway, because I thought the road was an iconic bluesy theme. We added road signs and a railroad crossing in mother of pearl in honor of “Cross Road Blues.”

I stayed with the OM body style because its medium size is pretty much perfect for everyone. Dick designed the bracing to be sturdier, because of the way that I pound on the guitar, along with a more durable fret wire, since I do a lot of slamming and banging. I use a medium set of Martin Authentic Acoustic SP strings.

While I appreciate a 12-fret neck, I went with 14 frets because it allows more range when you use a capo at the second fret, which I almost always do. It has something to do with the keys I like to sing in.

Standard tuning, dropped D, open D, and open G all work well for me capoed at the second fret. I do that for almost all the Robert Johnson songs in open G, including “Crossroads,” as well as Son House songs in open D, such as “Preachin’ Blues” or “Death Letter” in open G.

What capo do you prefer?

I endorse Shubb because it’s the perfect capo for me. Everybody keeps trying to build a better mousetrap, but for me this one is simply the best. I love the way the Shubb snaps in place. Every capo is going to drive the tuning into another realm, because every guitar has idiosyncratic, unique frets. You have to expect that, even if it’s so marginal that you can barely hear it.

The capo changes all of those subtleties because it changes the starting point. I know what’s going to happen with the Shubb. The bass string is going to go up a tiny bit, and I compensate for that immediately. 

How did you wind up using a socket wrench for a slide?

John Hammond told me to try it, because back in the ’60s I couldn’t find anything that fit my smaller hand. He and John Fahey or Stefan Grossman would simply break a wine bottle neck and sand it down, but that was too large for me. No matter what bottle I used, it fell right off.

People started to bring me custom slides made of everything from blown glass to porcelain, but nothing was quite right until John Hammond said, “Go out and get yourself a socket wrench. They come in all sizes.”

I happened to have a friend who owned a gas station, and he let me try on a bunch of socket wrenches. I wound up using a Snap-on Tools 15mm deep well socket, with the end sanded off. It has great percussive power.

I recently tried a porcelain slide again that someone had given me years ago, and it sounded much more mellow, buttery sweet and smooth. The metal slide provides a nice edge, and the heavy weight makes it perfect for percussion when hitting the frets or the neck on songs such as Muddy Waters’ “I Be Bound to Write You,” which I do in open G without a capo, or Robert Johnson’s “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day” [also in open G].

Most modern slide stars play electric guitar. What are your thoughts about sustaining slide notes on an acoustic?

I get all the sustain I need with an acoustic guitar and a slide. As long as you keep the vibrato going, there’s no limit to the sustain other than the diminishing volume because of the law of thermodynamics [i.e., the total energy of an isolated system is constant].

Very interesting. Is it true that you didn’t have much of a grasp on slide until Bonnie Raitt inspired you with a session performance?

I was already playing slide, but very badly. I was struggling, so for years I would play Robert Johnson’s material without a slide. I was very nervous about it. I would overshoot or undershoot, and the note would be sharp or flat. I didn’t have good tone, and the vibrato was too fast and buzzy.

I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong until later, when I first recorded “Ramblin’ on My Mind” and Bonnie played a solo on it. When we were mixing, the engineers isolated her track and I heard how her playing was so cool and relaxed.

I wrote about this in my book as well [2011’s When a Woman Gets the Blues], so I’m quoting myself, but it sounded like she was taking a stroll up the neck on the strings. I noticed that her vibrato was a wonderful, funky rocking back and forth. It wasn’t fast and nervous like what I was doing.

Listening to her gave me a bunch of ideas to try, including that thing she does where she leaps up from a note with a quick slide right off the string.

As a guitar player it often happens that you reach a plateau where you think, I’m stuck playing the same old stuff. I need some new ideas. Listening to Bonnie’s slide playing on that track was a profound jolt of inspiration. It was a revelation about all the things I needed to work on and learn, and it changed the way I practiced.

After a while, I found the pocket. I always say, “Slide is a Zen thing.” After that I started moving forward, learning to do the things that I now teach.

Such as?

For years, I felt completely unable to solo. My thing was sticking with the classic arrangements as closely as I could. But over time I realized that I would have to branch out and develop the ability to improvise.

I’ve since discovered that if you think you can’t do a solo, try singing it first. My husband, Rob [producer Rob Davis], encouraged me to do this when he said, “You play the slide the way you sing.” It hadn’t occurred to me that I could first sing the solo that I was hearing in my head, and then learn to play it on slide. That can help a lot for someone like me who didn’t quite know how to begin.

Soon I discovered that the more you experiment, the more your hands learn where melodies play out on the neck. I don’t do this anymore, because so many ideas have lodged in my brain over time, but that’s how I developed my slide soloing. 

Years ago when I was recording the original version of “Lovin’ Whiskey” [for 1986’s I’ve Got a Rock in My Sock], Bud Rizzo played the heart-wrenching solo on electric guitar. I sat next to him in the studio and sang what I had in mind.

That’s an example of what I’m talking about. If you can hear it and you can sing it, then you figure out how to play it. For the version of “Lovin’ Whiskey” on Ain’t Nobody Worried, I decided to follow what Bud did note for note on acoustic, and I feel like it has come full circle.

What are the origins of your very unique freehand plucking approach?

When I was growing up, my dad played claw-hammer banjo in a style called frailing. That style incorporates an up pluck, a down slam with your fingers, your palm landing on the instrument like a drum, and just this continuous back-and-forth, up-and-down and snap-and-thump.

He showed it to me when I was about eight years old, and it embodied everything that I applied directly to Robert Johnson – that and a little bit of rolling out notes in a flamenco style.

You chose Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train” to close out Ain’t Nobody Worried, and you write in the liner notes how she was the nanny to the Seeger children, and that you believe her “Cotten picking” could be the most influential guitar style ever created.

Yes, because her style is incorporated into almost every fingerpicking style on Earth. When I went to summer camp as a young girl it was run by Pete Seeger’s brother, John Seeger. So it was a music-oriented camp, and everybody was playing Cotten picking.

Everybody was introduced to the guitar with that alternating bass, and everybody knew about Elizabeth Cotten. So in my world, everybody recognized that style.

Who are some up-and-coming acoustic blues ladies that you feel deserve wider recognition?

Some of my guitar students really stand out to me. Lisa Rich, a super-talented blues guitarist from Connecticut, played “Preaching Blues” so hard it shook my whole house, but she has since gone on to other pursuits.

Donna Herula, who was also once a student of mine, is another very strong slide player. She’s been making records and gaining recognition.

Heidi Holton is another former student who is doing well. I have produced two recordings for her and consider her to be a very strong up and coming artist.

Shari Kane out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is also an outstanding slide player. So there are definitely strong blues ladies out there building careers.

The biggest piece of advice I like to give to players is to keep going until everybody knows who you are.

Order Ain’t Nobody Worried by Rory Block here.

Browse the Rory Block catalog here.

Today, on the anniversary of his passing, we remember Irish blues-rock legend Rory Gallagher.

Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, the first pieces Gallagher attempted to play were cowboy songs and Irish folk tunes on acoustic guitar, beginning at age nine.

American rock ‘n’ rollers such as Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry had an early impression on the budding guitarist, though he discovered blues, à la Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, by way of Lonnie Donegan’s British skiffle hits.

At 15, Gallagher joined the Fontana Show Band, which toured England and Ireland. The constant work helped refine his playing, but the commercial nature of the repertoire caused him to look elsewhere for artistic satisfaction, jamming with the group's drummer and bassist in small clubs throughout Europe.

By 1966, Gallagher had formed Taste, the now legendary blues-rock trio, comprised of Eric Kitteringham on bass, Norman Demery on drums, and Gallagher on guitar, vocals, and, occasionally, saxophone.

In 1969, the group signed with Polydor Records, but had disbanded by the following year, at which point the guitarist began to pursue a solo career in earnest.

Throughout the ‘70s, Gallagher recorded a steady stream of solos albums, picking up legions of fans along the way and establishing himself as one of the era’s most influential guitarists.

In this interview extract from the March 1978 issue of Guitar Player, Gallagher talks about his various musical styles and techniques and the gear he used to arrive at his distinctive, energetic sound.

What he has to say about blues and rock ‘n’ roll should be required reading for any guitarist...

Hypothetically, if you were teaching blues guitar at a school, how would you go about it?

I’d keep it within a reasonably rigid blues framework, just to keep it on center. A lot of it would depend on what music the student had been exposed to.

I mean, if your parents were interested in music anyway – your father, for instance, had a couple of Bill Broonzy or Lonnie Johnson albums – or you were brought up listening to jazz programs on the BBC where they'd slot in the odd blues thing, you'd obviously have a head start.

Otherwise, you'd probably get into blues through rock 'n' roll – through Chuck Berry or maybe “High Heeled Sneakers” by Tommy Tucker. Then with the Rolling Stones era, you could sneak into the blues thing that way.

In my case, I started on the proverbial Lonnie Donegan skiffle music trail, where I heard Lonnie doing Leadbelly songs, such as “Rock Island Line” and “Bring Me A Lil' Water Silvy.”

Before I even owned records by Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, I used to get library books out in Cork – because you couldn't buy the albums in Britain – and I’d learn the lyrics to these songs.

But at the same time I was interested in rock 'n' roll – such as Buddy Holly. Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. I was listening to both of these strains, because at lots of points they'd cross.

Once you get beyond the Chuck Berry/Eddie Cochran thing, you begin to figure out that you've got Broonzy at one end of the scale – and that goes right back to the old tradition of Charley Patton – then John Lee Hooker has the Detroit electric blues style, which evolved from his acoustic style.

And you also get the Josh White sort of folkie style of blues. You just have to listen to a lot of records.

Which records do you think are essential for someone who wants to get into blues?

I suppose you'd have to go back to one of the main sources, say, either Robert Johnson, Lemon Jefferson, Willie McTell, or Leadbelly. The two Robert Johnson records [King Of The Delta Blues Singers, Vols. I & II] are obviously cornerstones; you'd have to get at least one of those.

It’s pretty hard to zone in on it, because some guys mightn't get into Robert Johnson and might prefer, say, Willie McTell. But if we try to break it down to the key blues albums, I think that a Robert Johnson record would have to be included.

Then Blind Boy Fuller is another favorite of mine, especially that album With Bull City Red and Sonny Terry, with “Pistol Slapper Blues” on it.

I think that Broonzy album where he does “Banker’s Blues” [The Young Big Bill Broonzy] is an important one, because he was broadening the scale.

It’s different from the ones he made around 1950, where it was blues plus ballads.

The Best Of Muddy Waters [reissued as Sail On] is definitely an archetypal electric blues album.

Do you think albums by people such as Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf are important listening?

Oh yeah. You'd have to get The Real Folk Blues by Wolf, with “Spoonful” and “Shake For Me” [reissued in part on Howlin’ Wolf: the Chess Box] for Hubert Sumlin’s electric blues guitar.

He's the great undiscovered, underrated lead player. And Wolf himself harks back vocally to Charley Patton, and, besides, he plays a little bit of slide guitar here and there, too – like on “Down In The Bottom.”

And his harmonica playing is important, even though everyone seems to write it off as just, “He plays harmonica.” I think he plays good gut-bucket harmonica.

Which of Elmore James's albums would you single out?

Its hard to pin down one album for him, because there are so many oddball ones. I've got one on Ember Records – just sort of a bargain label – and it was reruns of some of his stuff, like “Sunnyland,” “Standing At The Crossroads.” and “Dust My Broom” yet again.

I find that any Elmore James album is good.

What about the older country blues players?

In terms of intensity, Son House has to be listened to. Of all the blues players, that's probably the closest connection with Africa. I've got that one album, with “John the Revelator.” [The Legendary Father Of Folk Blues] That's an ace album.

If people come to hear you in concert, and they want to learn how to play guitar themselves, do you think it's more important for them to buy your records or these old records you spoke of?

To learn guitar? Well, I write a lot of my own stuff, so it's a cross between ego and the heritage thing.

If you want to play like Rory Gallagher, I think you'd buy my records. But if you want to pick up on whatever echoes of the bluesmen that I respect and love, certainly go ahead and buy some blues records.

In my case, I’d say the obvious influences would be Hubert Sumlin, Earl Hooker, and Buddy Guy, electrically; and, acoustically, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake, though I can't get anywhere near what Blake does.

But you see, I never started out to become a strict recreator of the blues or even a modern young bluesman, as it were. I mean, I wanted to be me.

I'm a huge blues fan, but I still have a bit of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly hovering around in my head, plus certain folk people, such as Doc Watson – a pretty wide range of listening.

What type of instrument would you recommend for an acoustic blues novice to start on?

With acoustic guitar, for the first couple of years at least, I think you should leave a wound third string on and really build up strength in the fingers. In other words, don't try bending strings the first week you buy the guitar.

Kids are lucky nowadays; you can get a Yamaha or something, and the cheaper model guitars are much better quality than they were years ago when you got this stuff with terrible action.

The first guitar I got cost just over four pounds, which was about twenty dollars then, in the good old days.

After a while you get that urge to say, “To hell with this – I’m going to bend this string,” instead of sliding up. But you have to build that up.

But do you think a student should start out with, say, a wooden Yamaha or a metal-bodied National such as you sometimes play?

Well, lets put it this way: If you're a kid with ears the size of the moon and an amazing sense of direction, who heard Son House or Blind Boy Fuller or any of the National steel-body players and said, “They're the people I want to play like,” then go ahead and buy the National, because that's a great place to start.

But if you start with a National. you're talking about a guitar that weighs quite a bit.

Do you use a wound or an unwound third string on the National?

A wound third, because the numbers I happen to play need that fairly stiff action. I don't do any Broonzy-type bending with light strings on the National, whereas on a Martin acoustic I probably would.

Do you use an acoustic onstage?

I do; I play a Martin D-35. I use the National for things like “Pistol Slapper Blues,” which I play faster than Blind Boy Fuller did, and a J.B. Hutto song called “Too Much Alcohol,” which he plays electric, of course.

There's always the nature of the banjo in the National, I find, and you have to play it sort of like that. I do anyway.

Do you play acoustic with a plectrum or your fingers?

With a plectrum and the fingers. I fool around with National metal fingerpicks and the plastic ones sometimes.

How is your Martin set up?

Well, that's set up with the same strings, because at present I'm doing numbers like Leadbelly’s “Out On The Western Plain,” where the tuning is D - A - D - G - A - D [low to high]. It’s [open] D tuning, except that the G remains a G [rather than major third/F#.]

What do you use for an electric guitar?

I have two different electrics. I have a [Fender] Stratocaster with Fender light gauge Rock And Roll strings, which I use for basic playing and some slide work in straight tuning.

I also have a [Fender] Telecaster for A tuning and other open tunings, for songs like “Bullfrog Blues.”

Why the Stratocaster?

Well, that's the eternal argument among Fender fans. Buddy Holly had a Strat, and as a child you go after the appearance of a guitar; I don't care what anyone says. You look at the shape of the thing, and that's it. I've tried Gibsons, but I'm not a great fan of humbucking pickups.

Why is that?

Because as you bring down the volume from 10 to 9 to 8, after that – forget it; the guitar loses its sensitivity and drive.

Whereas with the single-coil or P-90 pickups – one of the old Gibson units with the black or white plastic covers – the volume control goes down nice and gradually, and even at 6 the guitar is still doing something.

Why do you usually switch to the Telecaster for slide?

I like a good bright tone, and I like the out-of-phase sound you can get with the switch set between the normal positions on a Strat.

Its comfortable, the scale seems right, and I like having the machine heads on one side – it just seems to make sense.

But if you want, say, a more luxurious, fatter sound, the Gibson guitar certainly would do the job, and it's got an extra fret – if anybody ever touches that fret; I'm sure they don't.

I thought it had a certain steel guitar type of tone which would work well with slide, but I was frustrated with the rhythm [neck/front] pickup – I thought it was too thin. So I put a Strat pickup there, and it remained that way for a year.

Then I said, “To hell with it – I’ll do the Telecaster à la Strat,” so now I've got two Strat pickups and a Tele lead pickup and a five-way Strat toggle switch.

It’s like the best of both worlds with the Telecaster lead pickup, which is slightly hotter than a Stratocaster’s.

What do you use for a slide?

It depends; I shift around. I sometimes use a bottleneck on my ring finger for electric stuff; otherwise I've got two stainless steel tubes, which I sometimes use on my small finger or the ring finger. They get a more stinging, Muddy Waters sound.

You get a different sound depending on what slide you use. For instance, if you're playing slide on a National with a glass slide, forget it.  You have to have something like steel or, even better, copper. Son House used copper, and I've got one of those as well.

What type of amplification do you use?

For years I used a Vox AC30, which is the best all-around European amp I've ever come across. I still have it. The Shadows used to use them, and the Beatles used them, so you know it was the popular amp.

But I found that when using the [Dallas Rangemaster] treble booster, that along with the treble boost you got a built-in gain, because the transistors were fairly primitive.

If I used the normal input – which was very bassy, as opposed to the brilliant input – I could get that nice rough edge without getting into a very fuzzy sound.

I used that for years, and I've had odds and sods in between, but then I moved on to an old Fifties tweed Fender Twin, which I still have.

Then I got into a tweed Fender Bassman, and recently I got a Fender Concert, which is an old brown one, from around 1959, with four 10” speakers.

I use a Hawk booster through that just to roughen it up a bit, or if it's a quiet number I plug straight in and keep the guitar clean sounding.

Do you think it's advantageous to learn acoustic before moving on to electric?

Well, I played acoustic for two or three years before I bought an electric. I wasn't particularly interested in electric for the first couple of years, because I was a Lonnie Donegan fan.

I think it's better to start on acoustic and then get into electric, but you could get into a fistfight over that. I mean, some people would say, “To hell with acoustic guitar; it never existed. You've got to get a solidbody right away.”

Fair enough, but I think they're missing out. Even if you're going to become the consummate 1978 electric guitarist, I think you're missing out on an awful lot, if only for the fun of playing an acoustic guitar at home as a hobby.

And it's nice to go from the acoustic, where even at the best of times the action is fairly taut, to the electric with light strings, where you float around like jelly. If you're always playing on light-gauge strings, you'll never really build up strength and subsequently real volume without turning up your amp yet again.

Are there any other techniques that you can adapt from acoustic to electric?

If you never played acoustic the odds would probably be three-to-one that you might never get into, say, playing with a plectrum and fingers or ever get interested in the various acoustic right-hand things.

I think if you're just playing with a flatpick full-time, you're only half playing the guitar.

So would you advise learning to fingerpick with bare fingers, with fingerpicks, or with a plectrum and the fingers?

Well, if you could wave a magic wand, you should tell the person to try all forms and be familiar with them all – anything instead of just using the plectrum alone.

I think at some point in every song you're going to need the fingers.

If you're interested in classical guitar, it's nice to get a couple of years training at that, and then you'd have very strong hands, and you could skip thumbpicks and metal picks or whatever.

Do you use fingerpicks mainly for volume, or do you use them for a specific sound?

I would use them for volume, you know, and to save wear and tear.

If I were a highly developed thumb-and-fingers person I’d just use the bare skin, but you do get the real sharp, biting sound with the metal claws.

Gary Davis just used the one plastic fingerpick, and he seemed to make great sense out of that.

So you think it's very important for a student to learn to use their fingers as well as a pick.

Yeah, even if they never touch folk or blues music. Of course, the sky's the limit nowadays, and I suppose for Chuck Berry rock 'n' roll it doesn't matter too much, but even Keith Richards uses his fingers on things like “Honky Tonk Woman.”

Do you think it's important for a guitarist to learn to read music?

I did it by ear, listening to records. I never had a teacher, and I regret that I can’t read music. I went into the library once and got Teach Yourself How To Read Music or something, and it said, “Sit down at your piano.” We didn't have a piano, so that went down the chute.

Then I worked out F, A, and C and gave up, because I was too impulsive, and I was already delighted that I could play “Lost John” and a couple of other songs.

Then, next thing, I was playing blues and rock 'n' roll, which is fairly instinctive and primitive stuff anyway. But later on you start getting beyond the open tunings and ragtime blues, you know, and you're listening to someone like Diango Reinhardt or modern jazz guitarists, even bossa nova stuff like Charlie Byrd, and you begin to feel a little inadequate if you're an all-around guitar fan.

So you get a couple of books on chords and try to make sense of that. That's where the reading would probably come in; it would help if you were a bit of a jazz fan.

When recording with other musicians, do you find that not knowing written music limits your ability to communicate ideas in the studio?

No, that's no problem. Because you can hum it to them or play it on the guitar. I don't think that's the drawback; the only drawback is if you were interested in playing a classical piece verbatim, or you wanted to play a Charlie Christian solo and really wanted to find out all the notes that he played and the harmony and theory thing behind it.

Sometimes you say. “To hell with it; it doesn't matter anyway,” but it kind of does matter. I’d say a year or two of just learning a little bit of theory wouldn't do any harm. Even tablature foxes me; I have no head for mathematics.

What advice could you give in terms of practicing the guitar?

Well, it's like the old cliché: You have to love the instrument and the idea of the instrument and the whole aura of the thing, and that will dictate how much you practice, really.

I don't think you have to sit down for eight hours a day or anything, but if you're really interested, you'll probably do that anyway in the early stages – and even after that, between trying to write songs and experimenting with notes and loosening your fingers.

I think you're bound to get in an hour or two a day anyway, although some guys say they only play five minutes a day outside the gig.

Could you offer any advice for guitarists wanting to become professionals?

If you wanted to get into, say, electric blues, I’d get into a band as soon as possible, no matter how bad it is.

Don’t be too proud – get into some kind of band; get playing with a drummer. That's essential for electric blues.

If you want to play acoustic music on your own, just hurry up and get a gig if you can; get out there and play in front of people.

You feel that playing in front of people is an important thing to do as soon as possible?

Yes, it brings something out. I know for a fact that if I'm off the road for a long spell, even if I'm rehearsing like mad and playing a lot at home, the real crunch comes when I get out in front of people.

The things you thought were really hot in rehearsal don't make any sense, because quite often you've forgotten the basic drive.

In rehearsals sometimes the basics get glossed over, because you're fooling around too much with the frilly stuff. If you get out there in front of an audience, drop your pick or break a string, that toughens you up, and it brings out projection in your playing.

You have to direct your playing somewhere – unless you want to sit in a room like the painter looking at the painting he's just done, and he won't show it to anybody.

You do get people like that, who think there's no one in the city who's good enough to play with. But even acoustic players should get to a folk club and listen to other people, play with other people.

There's always a thin line between studying the old records by the old masters and trying to develop yourself. I think both can be done at the same time, because if you forget the old masters, you miss out on a whole heritage and a whole world, really.

But you shouldn't get too clogged up with the old stuff to the point where you won't be moving on yourself, because you won't end up like an old master yourself anyway, you know.

Order the Rory Gallagher 1971 debut solo album 50th anniversary edition here.

A year before Bob Dylan went electric with a sunburst Fender Stratocaster at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, a bluesman who hadn’t recorded and had rarely performed since the 1930s stunned the festival’s crowd of 15,000 spectators with an electrifying performance of his own.

Just weeks earlier, Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James had been recovering from cancer treatments in a Tunica, Mississippi hospital when John Fahey and two friends tracked down the 61-year-old legend and persuaded him to play again.

His re-emergence came during the 1960s blues revival at a time that also saw the “rediscovery” of Bukka White, Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mississippi John Hurt and others, who played to new audiences and scored record deals.

Armed only with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, Skip James captivated the Newport audience with his high falsetto and spidery fingerpicking that often commanded all 10 of his fingers.

“Skip at Newport ’64 was just transcendent. It was incredible,” recalls Dick Waterman, who witnessed the performance and later managed James’ career until his death in 1969.

“He sat down and he set his fingers down on the fretboard, and he took a breath and hit the first note of ‘Devil Got My Woman,’ and it was just incredible. Just shivers even at the memory of it.”

It’s safe to say no one else at Newport was playing blues guitar the way James did at the time – not House and not White, who were also on the bill in 1964.

Instead of the more commonly used open-G and open-E major-key tunings, James played in a D-minor tuning, which lent songs like “Hard Time Killing Floor” and “Cypress Grove” an ominous tone. The tuning was so particular that it became associated with Bentonia, Mississippi, James’ hometown, through a succession of players.

“In other regional styles of Delta blues, you may have an open-tuned guitar where the minor gets introduced against the major chord,” says Ryan Lee Crosby, a Massachusetts-based blues artist who learned Bentonia blues from Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, the last living musical link to James.

“But in the Bentonia style, it’s a minor chord, where major notes get added on top, so the tension between the major and minor is inverted.”

This differentiator sets up the darker, minor-key sound of Bentonia standards, but there are also other structural differences – or, rather, a lack of structure, as there are no choruses and few turnarounds in Bentonia blues, and no set number of times to repeat a pattern.

The droning, hypnotic tones come from ringing the open strings with the thumb or forefinger while fingerpicking, and frailing across the strings with the others.

While James doesn’t have the household-name recognition of B.B. King, Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson, his influence has never been stronger among blues and folk musicians. The Carolina Chocolate Drops, a folk collective that launched the careers of Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons and Leyla McCalla, carries his penchant for freeform, minor-key romps.

Emerging blues guitarists and singers like Buffalo Nichols and Adia Victoria wear his influence even more prominently.

“I came into Skip James’ music at the perfect time in my life,” says Victoria, who discovered him around the time she got her first guitar, at age 21. 

“I felt spoken to in a way that I’d never felt spoken to. I felt reached and seen. And I felt like, through Skip James, I became more in touch and aware of my culture as a Black southerner, in a way that I hadn’t been before.”

James’ 1960s revival didn’t last long. Before his cancer roared out of remission in 1967, his handlers squandered the considerable buzz he had created at Newport. By the time Waterman helped him get a record contract in late 1965, more palatable blues artists like Hurt were getting more attention, gigs and money.

It didn’t help that James, by all accounts, was a proud man who felt his playing was of higher artistic merit than his contemporaries on the folk blues scene.

“He was a very different, difficult, contrary kind of person,” Waterman says. “In other words, Skip had a huge ego and he loved to be flattered, and the best way to get along with Skip was to be flattering and tell him how great he was. 

"He felt he himself was performing at a much, much higher level, which may or may not be true, depending on how you look at it. He definitely was not ‘one of the guys.’”

Bentonia, Mississippi, sits atop the hills that rise above the vast alluvial Delta, where blues music evolved at sharecropper plantations and juke joints, makeshift venues where laborers could find music and moonshine.

Like many former farming outposts across the South, Bentonia is bisected by a railroad whose trains don’t bother stopping anymore. The only thing riding these rails are freighters headed north and south on the same tracks that dropped Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in Chicago.

The Blue Front Café, considered the oldest juke operating in Mississippi, still stands next to the tracks in the center of town. Behind the cinderblock façade and barred front doors, locals mosey in to buy cigarettes and sundries, lingering sometimes to talk to the proprietor, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes.

At 74, Holmes is not only an elder statesman – he’s also the last of the Bentonia bluesmen.

The walls of the Blue Front are covered with faded posters and snapshots of the Bentonia Blues Festival, which Holmes has run for five decades. Music equipment is everywhere – microphone stands at half mast, guitars mounted onto the cinderblock and shiplap walls, a pair of dusty Peavey guitar amps on the floor under a pile of cables.

On a folding card table, copies of his eighth album, the Grammy-nominated Cypress Grove (Easy Eye Sound, 2019), are stacked for sale. Holmes recorded the collection of potent and haunted performances from the Bentonia canon – the title track, “Hard Times” and “Devil Got My Woman” were part of the original 26 sides James recorded for Paramount Records for $40 in 1931 – with the Black Keys at Dan Auerbach’s studio in Nashville.

“There’s an urgency with getting any of these types of people in the studio, older musicians that are sort of one of a kind,” Auerbach says. “The whole thing just felt like a blessing, really, just to be able to get to do it. And to share the love of the music and live in Jimmy’s world for a little bit.”

Holmes didn’t learn the Bentonia blues from James, who played the Blue Front occasionally. James and another Bentonia artist, Jack Owens, both learned from a man named Henry Stuckey, who lived in the area and, for a time, on the Holmes farm.

Stuckey allegedly learned the open D-minor tuning from a group of Bahamian soldiers he met in France during World War I and brought it home. Owens began to teach Holmes off and on beginning in the late ’70s, and by the ’90s the pair were playing daily at the Blue Front.

“I picked up some licks from him, which I was doing all along, but he was a hard act to follow,” Holmes says. 

“He wanted me to learn it, and I think now, from a divine perspective, he wanted me to learn it but he didn’t know how to teach it. He would come every day and say, ‘Boy, let’s play. You’ve got to learn to do this.’”

Over the past few years, Holmes has taken on the role of instructor to younger players who visit him at the Blue Front. Robert Connelly Farr, a Mississippi native who lives in Vancouver, B.C., reinterprets his lessons into thunderous back-alley blues, while Mike Munson’s adaptations are fully absorbed into his singer-songwriter compositions. Ghalia Volt, who honed her one-woman-band craft while busking in Brussels, Belgium, frequently shows up to perform at the juke.

Neither Victoria nor Nichols have made a similar pilgrimage to Bentonia, but James’ influence is a strong undercurrent in both artists’ music. On A Southern Gothic (Warner Bros.), Victoria’s third album, the Bentonia sound manifests in the eerie tension, tuning and fingerpicking on songs like “Magnolia Blues” and “Carolina Bound.”

“That D-minor tuning lends itself to some of the more melancholic aspects of human emotion, and combining that tuning with his voice, that falsetto, was very plaintive, mournful, but it could also sound manic, as well,” Victoria says. 

“His style of singing is what my internal voice sounded like. You can hear that weariness. You can hear that wisdom and that defiance, as well. It’s like a combination of dark and light that really spoke to me – that startled me, really.”

Nichols discovered James on a blues compilation when he was 12 or 13, he says, but didn’t seek out a full James collection for another five years. As a metalhead at the time, Nichols was already familiar with drop-D tuning, so transitioning to open D-minor tuning wasn’t too much of a stretch.

He eventually left behind his shredding for the organic tones of an acoustic guitar and a country-folk blues sound. For Nichols, the most enduring influence of James on his own playing isn’t what he played as much as his individualism.

“Whenever he would play songs that weren’t his, he would always make sure to play in his own style,” Nichols says. “That’s always stuck with me, because I’ve never really been the type to learn other people’s music. The two or three Skip James songs that I play are the two or three that I know. This music to me is supposed to be individual and be about the expression of the player.”

True to his word, on his cover on the James composition “Sick Bed Blues” from his 2021 self-titled debut album (Fat Possum), Nichols speeds up the tempo and improvises on the original licks with his own slide-accented descending figure.

Such improvisation is a central feature of the Bentonia sound. Holmes maintains that the songs are impossible to transcribe because they’re never played the same way twice. That’s due in part to playing from the heart, he says, but also because guys like Owens were uneducated.

“If you told Jack Owens, ‘I want you to do four counts of ‘Hard Times,’ he wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” Holmes says. “‘Uh, can you run me an E chord?’ Have no idea what you’re talking about. Even though he could do it, but he was unaware he was doin’ it.” 

Adds Nichols, “You hear the way he plays, and the biggest challenge is you can’t really sit down and transcribe it because it’s not very predictable. 

"The way he’s going to play, it all relates to the way he sings, and if you hear him do three recordings of the same song, it’s always going to be a little different. I had to unlearn a lot of the sort of technical precision and rely more on the feeling of it.”

Victoria agrees that playing the music riff-for-riff is missing the point. James understood how to use the guitar to serve his purpose of telling honest stories. Emulating him or anyone else takes the heart out of the music.

“Skip James’ music is an invitation to use your imagination to press forward in what he did,” she says. “He’s already done that. He’s mastered that, so there’s no point in trying to replicate it. 

"But I think that he still serves a valuable lesson of how can you give sound to your mood and your world, and how can you swathe your storytelling in this oral blanket.

“And to stay out of your way,” she adds. “If the story is good, the guitar should serve you. The guitar should never be a crutch behind a lack of insight in your story. I think that was the brilliance of Skip James. His storytelling was as brilliant as his guitar playing, and vice versa.”

Browse the Skip James catalog here.

During his lifetime, James alternated between shadow and light in his performances, ranging from the wrenching “Devil Got My Woman” to the rolling gospel “Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader.”

Favoring Gibson and Martin acoustic flat-tops, his D-minor tuning and high, ghostly singing style gave these compositions gravitas as his fingerstyle blues guitar technique propelled them forward, all while never committing to a definitive structure for any of his songs.

James traveled from Bentonia, Mississippi to Grafton, Wisconsin in 1931 and recorded 18 sides for Paramount Records, but after his recordings failed to sell, he found his way to the ministry and became a preacher like his father.

When he stepped back onstage in 1964, his music found rapturous audiences and he re-recorded many of his early songs, along with a few new cuts, for the albums Today! (1966) and Devil Got My Woman (1968).

Musically, we’re left with two portraits of the artist: the first in 1931, when he was 29, and the second in the mid 1960s, near the end of his life.

Ryan Lee Crosby, an accomplished fingerstylist, songwriter and student of Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, the last remaining Bentonia bluesman, has studied both eras of James’ recordings and performances.

“Those Paramount recordings have so much urgency, and he plays really fast,” says Crosby, whose album Winter Hill Blues comes out in May 2022. “It’s almost like he puts the brakes on the momentum of his playing [in the 1960s], or he’ll stall things and let a bass note pop out in a way that I feel is really different from his early playing.”

Here, Crosby offers insights into five essential Skip James songs and how his performances evolved over the decades…

“DEVIL GOT MY WOMAN”

“Devil Got My Woman,” sometimes referred to as “Rather Be the Devil” after its opening line, is one of James’ best-known songs. The tension he builds in the descending riff resolves at the end of each line, but James hangs onto the chord while he sets up the next line with similarly structured licks.

“When I think of Skip, it’s his really articulate, complicated fingerstyle playing,” Crosby says. “There’s a particular kind of articulation to how he plays that I feel is directly related to using multiple fingers, a little bit of an alternating bass.

“The 1930s one I think is a little more driving, yet a little more syncopated, and he emphasizes the rhythm in a way that is different from any other version I’ve heard. On the ’66 recording, I feel like he lets things breathe a little bit. There is a freer quality to it. It’s more spacious.”

“HARD TIME KILLIN’ FLOOR BLUES”

One of the earliest and best-known riffs in the blues canon, “Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues” sounds as desolate and dark as a windswept winter night.

Although Willie Dixon served as the inspiration and origin for some of Led Zeppelin’s early work, Jimmy Page echoes James’ minor step-down here on “Dazed and Confused” from Led Zeppelin I, a motif that resurfaces again and again across the hard-rock and metal canon.

“When you hear Jimmy [‘Duck’ Holmes] and Jack Owens play ‘Hard Times,’ or ‘Hard Time Killin’ Floor,’ you can hear how connected they are,” Crosby says. “But Skip’s way of playing it is really quite different.

“Skip has entirely different melodies, and the harmonic qualities of it are different. He has a bass line in his version, and he voices the chords differently. He has these almost suspended-sounding chords when he’s singing in the early version, and he slides between the notes in a way where it’s almost like he’s speeding up and slowing down the feeling of time. He was his own person within the tradition.”

“I’M SO GLAD”

One of the most joyous songs in James’ catalog, “I’m So Glad” anticipates the return of a lover while, underneath his singing, James scurries along the fretboard with fleet finger work.

“‘I’m So Glad’ is a great example of how he’s doing these complicated articulations of octaves and chords,” Crosby says. “Skip used his fingers in a way where you might almost say it shares a little more with Piedmont style than some of the Mississippi Delta stuff.

“You get these articulations of chords that have different rhythmic feelings and like a rolling quality, and that’s really on display in ‘I’m so Glad.’ ‘Illinois Blues’ has some of that too, and certain ways in which he will roll his thumb across the strings.”

“CYPRESS GROVE”

In the version of “Cypress Grove” on Today!, James played in a more relaxed manner and his note choices sound less urgent and more whimsical than on the Paramount recording. His rhythm swings. His voice doesn’t sink under the weight of his lyrics, but seems to rise, confident and no longer burdened. Crosby explains how he got there.

“Typically in the blues, you’d have a flat third and a flat seven,” he says. “In the Bentonia style, the guitar is tuned to the minor tuning, and there is that kind of oscillating between the major and minor third.

“But in ‘Cypress Grove,’ Skip hits a natural seventh in the main riff of that song where he’s playing between his singing, and that gives it, to my ear, a little bit of an Eastern thing. He’s in the minor tuning with the natural seventh. I can’t think of too many other blues songs that sound like that.”

“SPECIAL RIDER BLUES”

Although not a particularly famous cut, “Special Rider” stands out in James’ oeuvre for its open-G tuning, a rare departure from his other work in D-minor. His rhythm, Crosby explains, has a different groove, as well.

“A lot of the cross-note stuff, especially on the 1931 recordings,” he says, “to me feels weighted. There’s that forward momentum and a driving and an urgency to the cross-note stuff. But it feels really heavy to me, too.

“‘Special Rider’ has a little bit of a lightness and a jagged, sort of pointed quality to the riff. You see in ‘I’m So Glad’ he’s playing a lot of octaves and he’s moving them across the fretboard, and pairing octaves with open strings. But in ‘Special Rider,’ he’s doing some straight barre chords. It’s just got a completely different tone, different groove, and another angle on the fingerpicking.”

Browse the Skip James catalog here.

John Lee Hooker’s career began in Clarksdale, Mississippi, during the 1930s. Unlike his blues guitar contemporaries Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, Hooker didn't play roll-and-tumble Delta jukes, choosing instead to launch his career in Memphis, singing gospel and blues.

He moved to Detroit after World War II to work by day in an auto plant and make the rounds of Black Bottom clubs by night. 1948's "Boogie Chillen'," his first R&B hit, inaugurated the most prolific recording career in postwar history. (It's estimated that between 1949 and 1953 alone, Hooker cut some 70 singles on 24 different labels, using a dozen different names to avoid contractual problems.) 

Hooker made his first foray into Europe in '62 and returned to find that "Boom Boom" had become his first crossover hit. Covers by the Animals and other British Invasion bands helped him win white audiences at home. 

Here he is performing "Boom Boom" with the Groundhogs live on BBC television in 1964:

The following John Lee Hooker interview extracts originally appeared in the August 1992 edition of Guitar Player…

Your songs turned a generation of kids on to the blues during the 1960s.

That "Boom Boom," that "Dimples" – turned a whole generation. It went to Europe, and then come back here and turned the whole universe on. Then different artists took to doing that song, "Boom Boom."

What do you look for in a tone?

I look for a deep, gutty feeling. I don't use picks, so I can get that deep gut feeling. People ask, "How do you get that?" It's just there. A lot of people try to play real fast chords – da da da da da – that's not the blues. It's synthetic. It ain't the hard, solid blues. It's a lot of speed and everything. It has no feeling to it.

You've got to sit down and play some [whispers] funky, funky guitar. Take your time! Don't rush it. Just let it come flowing through you. I can play guitar so funky, until it brings teardrops to your eyes. It has that funky, funky tone. I'm just me.

While most musicians stick to 12-bar blues, you seldom follow that format.

That's for the birds. People just feel – that's the way the blues is supposed to be played. Shut your eyes, and then you'll know what you're doing. I know what notes to hit. I know what notes not to hit. I can do a 12-bar perfect – perfect. Oh, yeah. If I did, then I wouldn't be John Lee Hooker.

See, I'm known for not doing it. When I'm just playing to myself I do it: 8, 12, 4, 16, 24. But ordinarily I don't do it, because it would take away a lot of my feeling. You cannot learn this in a book. You feel it here [points to his heart and head], not by writing on a piece of paper. Throw that paper away!

When I walk into a studio, I don't need all that stuff. I can go into a studio and in two hours' time I can record five or six songs. Sometimes it takes some people three or four weeks to record one or two songs!

Is it a compliment when people try to play like you?

Yeah, it is. Because I know I'm doing something to be loved.

Perhaps the measure of a truly great man is how he treats people day in and day out.

Right! The little things in life, the love. I always believe in "it comes back to you if you do something good." I was taught that, and I think it does. You do good deeds, somewhere in life it's going to come back. 

You can only do wrong so long before you get it in some kind of way. That's my belief. So I'm happy with my life. I had a good life, and I had a rough life – I've had both. 

I don't try to live in the past. I can't bring back those little things. I can't change the rough things that come through, so I look for the future. You can't live in the past – a lot of people try to live in a memory. 

I live for today and for people today.

Explore John Lee Hooker's catalog here.

Luther Dickinson is always inspirational as a player and as a person. Listening to him makes you want to play better, sound better and be kinder. His benevolent spirit shines through in the music, lyrics, and vocals, regardless of the project.

Constantly sought out, he has been consistently prolific like few others since his primary vessel, the North Mississippi Allstars, started tearing up juke joints a quarter century ago.

Dickinson is an eager collaborator. He teamed up with Robert Randolph for The Word, and spent a few years soaring with Rich Robinson in the Black Crowes. He’s produced Samantha Fish, Otha Turner and the Honey Island Swamp Band.

Wherever he goes, the tones are true and he sounds truly authentic playing an array of roots music, from Creole funk to his forte, Hill Country blues guitar.

Dickinson’s got chops boucoup, but the heart of his appeal is a boatful of soul in every note, and it’s in full effect on the Allstars’ lucky 13th album, Set Sail (New West).

Co-captain Cody Dickinson provides a steady keel on the skins as always, and the other half of the crew is new since 2019’s Grammy-nominated Up and Rolling. Bassist Jesse Williams succeeds Carl Dufrene, who passed away in 2020. Lamar Williams Jr., son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, hopped aboard to lend his expressive voice to the chorus that also includes Memphis R&B legend William Bell.

Dickinson delivers some of the slinkiest slide playing of his fruitful career on the epic title track, which sets a mystical course from the get go.

Laced with lovely strings and horns, “Set Sail Part II” takes the journey further out midway through the album’s seamless flow.

The angelic centerpiece “Didn’t We Have a Time” has an introduction of cascading guitar-peggios that sounds like opening heaven’s gate. Listen to its soothing pulse, wistful lyrics and melody and try not to get misty.

The counterbalance to all the soul searching is a gang of bangin’ house parties taking place along the Allstars’ adventure.

Multi-talented Cody contributes the entire rhythm section, including Nile Rodgers–like funk guitar on “See the Moon.”

Luther brings a Crescent City flare to the syncopated staccato riff bouncing throughout “Juicy Juice.”

The tribal tale “Rabbit Foot” summons a spooky cosmic swamp vibe that brings Papa Mali’s version of Isaac Hayes’ “Do Your Thing” to mind.

Luther brought mostly new instruments onboard for what he described as a “transitional record.” He spoke to us upon an early return from another family affair, the Allman Family Revival tour, which had its last four West Coast dates rescheduled to late February due to health and safety protocols.

How did you wind up with such a soulful sound on Set Sail?

It’s hard to know where you stand when the world is constantly moving underneath your feet. We’ve all had time to do some evaluation, and I wanted to leave a message in the music for my daughters in case they ever want to understand where I stood.

Cody, Jesse and I got zoned in on tour right before the pandemic hit. We were hot, and we kept stoking that fire by working on instrumental stuff, flipping files back and forth during quarantine.

Lamar had joined us on the very last night in Atlanta, so Set Sail is a cool extension of where our road trip had ended. I was listening hard to Prince and James Brown, as well as Daft Punk and Tame Impala. Lamar’s vocals accentuated the soul and took it to a whole new level. Luckily, the lyrics were almost done. I’d been working on them for years.

I was also writing the score for a documentary about American terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph called Onward Christian Soldier. That’s where I learned how to improvise to a click track and let the music sort of shape itself until there was something happening.

I grew up trying to write songs, so this way of creating music for film into Apple Logic made my eyes open wide.

How did you develop the two-part title track?

Another big influence was the live footage on YouTube of Bill Withers where he’s on acoustic guitar and the backing band is playing super quiet, but funky and intense. That inspired me, and I got a Baxendale-converted Harmony nylon-string that literally took my breath away when I opened the box.

Playing nylon-string is new to me, and that’s now my favorite guitar. It’s on almost every song and was the genesis of each song. I sat with that Harmony and the lyric book and worked out the arrangements, singing a scratch vocal along to a click track.

On the electric side, I came to a realization. After a lifetime of trying to match amp tremolos to the timing of the track, I recorded direct so I could set the tremolo in Logic to match the tempo. Now it sits right in the groove.

I re-amped the guitar signal by sending it out to my Category 5 amps to get tube tones. We developed a combo called the LD20 and another one that’s more like a little Champ. I use the larger one for cleaner tones and push the smaller one for dirtier tones. Onstage I’ll split the signal to both, often using bigger amps.

There’s a more powerful Cat 5 LD50 head that has an expression pedal for dialing in the tremolo speed, plus an even more powerful LD100, as well as a Lizzys 100-watter that I’ll use in a large venue. I’m done with half-stacks and use 2x12 cabinets now.

In the studio, I used a Coles 4038 ribbon mic on the Harmony nylon-string most of the time, and I’d use Coles to mic amps as well. The electric guitar story on “Set Sail” is kind of hilarious.

How so?

Well for starters, the song is in the key of Bb, which is great for vocals but can be weird on guitar. I didn’t feel like using a capo, so I grabbed my cheap Hondo black Strat-style guitar, like the one Ad-Rock [Adam Horovitz] uses in the Beastie Boys, put it in Spanish G tuning and raised everything a step and a half.

I didn’t want to tune any other guitars up that high. I figured I’d throw a scratch track down to fill up some space, but I was so inspired doing that slide solo and the outro on “Part II.”

My daughter was running around behind me, and following the flow of her spirit always helps me out creatively. It’s my favorite solo I’ve ever recorded.

Cutting that slide track was so casual, quick and fun, but it took me a week to clean up the signal from those cheap single-coil pickups full of buzzing and clicking. Those swells aren’t from a volume pedal, those are all the fades I had to edit in because the attack was so noisy.

The playing is wonderfully out of the box, with lots of interesting phrases and some slippery slide glissandos.

Thinking about the guitar fretboard horizontally can be hipper than thinking about it vertically, because the melody is there. It gives the phrasing a vocal quality like Sacred Steel, as well as players like Fred McDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, George Harrison and like-minded fingerstylist Robby Krieger.

If you can connect your ear and your mind with your heart and your hand playing intervals on one or two strings, then the whole guitar just kind of unlocks itself. It’s easy to think in terms of chords and inversions, scales and positions, but really, it’s all on one string, be it slide or fretting with fingers.

And I’m not sure if there’s much on “Set Sail,” but I’m addicted to playing behind the slide, letting fretted notes pop out to provide something solid you can hang your hat on amidst all the squirrelly slide microtones.

How’d you create the howling swells on the lead guitar track for “Outside”?

 I’m actually just playing with feedback. That’s from a guitar I helped design with Gibson that they call a 330L, which is a fully hollow, long-scale guitar with humbuckers.

It’s a bad mofo for feedback, man. I’m just leaning into the amp, playing very soft and letting the swells blossom not quite all the way, right on the edge. I’ve developed that hollowbody slide sound over my whole career. It’s like Fred McDowell doing Jimi Hendrix whammy bar.

But that throaty, midrange neck pickup sound has literally turned on me. I’ve played loud so long, with so much sustained feedback around 200Hz, that it literally hurts my ears. I can’t take that frequency anymore.

I’ve been changing up my tone for that and other reasons. A lot of the other tones on the record stem from the fact that I’ve fallen in love with the sound of Lollar’s Regal pickups. Those wide-range-style pickups are so clean, chimey, and bell-like that you can hear each note in every chord. It’s such a pretty tone, like a gold foil, but a little more civilized. That is my new sound.

How’d you get so into this new tone?

Steve Selvidge, who plays with the Hold Steady, gave me a Strat-style guitar we call the Godson that he designed using a pair of Lollar Regals, and it turned me out! It’s all over Set Sail.

During quarantine, my friend Chris Roberts and I started making instruments we call Vibratone Guitars with those Lollar Regals. That wide-range sound is based on Fender’s big, beautiful humbucker [from the ’72 Tele Deluxe].

I had a Mexican Fender Thinline that I put Regals in as well, and that’s the platform for one of the Vibratone guitars we’re making. I’ll be taking these guitars on the road as well.

Set Sail represents the transition from my former sound of a hollow Gibson with either P-90s or humbuckers, to this cleaner, chimey tone heard on tunes like “Didn’t We Have a Time.”

That’s in Spanish Bb tuning as well. The way Paul Westerberg uses open G tuning is genius, and that intro was definitely inspired by him. Being tuned up to Bb is similar to when Keith Richards or Robert Johnson would tune to Spanish G and capo up a few frets.

Your father [Jim Dickinson] produced Westerberg, worked with Richards, and introduced you to so many fantastic musicians that schooled you on guitar. You mention on the album how you’re now of similar age to many of them then, and the importance of handing wisdom down. How are you doing that, and who are your favorite young players picking it up?

I’ll start with peers that are a few years younger than me. Colonel Bruce Hampton used to say that Derek Trucks was of the angel race, and my dad would say that [Muscle Shoals keyboardist] Spooner Oldham is an angel.

So I’m a believer in the angel race of humans. But if Derek is an angel, then Duane Betts is a king among men. He knows his dad’s [Dickey Betts] style, he knows Duane [Allman]’s style, and he’s my favorite player to hear do the Jerry Garcia style as well. When he goes into a Dead thing, he’s got such beautiful touch that makes it all his own.

I’d like to mention that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Roots Rock Revival camp we started with [the late Allman Brothers Band drummer] Butch Trucks. That’s where Brandon “Taz” Niederauer was discovered. He’s got an old soul. He was young when he started, but he’s like a founding member, and I’d be happy if he went on to teach there and carry on that legacy.

Lara Cwass, David Sessions and William Bartumioli are fantastic young players from Roots Rock Revival that have taught me a thing or two. The fire of youth is the fuel for rock and roll, and playing multigenerational music helps keep the fire under your ass.

Asher Belsky is another promising teenage player coming up out on the West Coast. There are so many great guitar players in the younger generation.

It’s exciting! The future of roots rock is in good hands.

Purchase Set Sail here.

The traditional blues players from the 1920s through the ’60s established many popular song structures, chords and guitar techniques. It’s testament to the quality and enduring popularity of these artists that so much of the identity of their playing can still be heard in today’s blues music. 

Less well known is that blues is at the heart of much of the rock and metal that would emerge from the ’70s on – so there’s something for everyone to learn. What more reason do you need to follow our lesson on some core blues basics?

Classic Blues

Get jamming the easy way, with a simple, traditional repeating boogie riff in the style of the great John Lee Hooker (Ex. 1). Based around an A root note, this line can easily be taken through a standard 12-bar blues progression (A - D - E) by shifting the pattern up one string to a “D shape” riff and down one string set for the E chord.

Ex. 2 uses the rhythm and blues groove first popularized by Bo Diddley in his self-titled 1955 single and known today as the “Bo Diddley beat.” It’s been adapted by many artists, including the Rolling Stones in “Not Fade Away,” Bruce Springsteen in “She’s the One” and George Michael in “Faith.”

This catchy groove is all about the rhythm and timing, so strum slowly at first, then try using some other chords you know. To achieve the desired feel, keep your picking hand moving in a continuous, uninterrupted down-up-down-up manner with the underlying 16th-note pulse, even during the rests.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was famed for the shuffle rhythms and ferocious lead work he’d coax from his “Number One” Strat. In Ex. 3, a blues bass line is woven around an open A5 power chord. You get the weight of the chord while the bass line outlines a more sophisticated A7 harmony. Listen to SRV’s “Pride and Joy” and “Rude Mood” for inspiration.

Ex. 4 shows a blues turnaround inspired by Eric Clapton, who adapted Robert Johnson-style changes to electric blues guitar. Playing fingerstyle will help make all the melody notes and the descending bass notes ring out clearly.

Funk-rock blends nicely with blues rhythms, as Jimi Hendrix demonstrated in many of his classic tracks. Ex. 5 is informed by his style and employs one of his favorite chords (the 7#9, often dubbed “the Hendrix chord”) played in both E and C. In the single-note part of the riff, you can pull the 5th-fret G note slightly sharp for an even bluesier flavor.

B.B. King was famed for his soulful touch and his quivering “butterfly” vibrato technique, which is deftly employed with the A note in Ex. 6. To emulate B.B.’s signature sound, aim for a quick wobble of the string but without too much pitch change. Rest the base of your fretting finger on the side of the fretboard then “flutter” your hand around this pivot point to create the vibrato. It’s easier than using pure finger strength, and it’s pure B.B.

In blues circles, a mini sweep across the strings is referred to as a rake. This drag of the pick is more of a percussive effect, so the notes don’t need to be perfectly fretted. You can even mute the strings entirely as you pick, so that the rake notes are pitchless “chucks.” We’ve written picking directions for the rakes here (Ex. 7). Notice how the quarter-tone bend in bar 1 provides a blues edge too.

Playing two notes at once is a great way to thicken up your guitar sound. This is an effective thing to do to help avoid the dreaded “tone dropout” you might experience when soloing in a power trio. Ex. 8 is inspired by John Mayer, and in bar 2 we’re playing a line that descends the B and high E strings in diatonic 3rds strings, sweetly harmonizing the key of A minor.

From Eric Clapton to Joe Bonamassa, great blues guitarists seem to have a never-ending vocabulary of stock phrases, yet they somehow always sound authentic. The key is to use the minor or major pentatonic scale as a foundation and keep your solos simple at first. In Ex. 9, we’re playing a very triplet-y phrase based on the A minor pentatonic scale (A, C, D, E, G) and presenting ideas that can be reimagined in myriad ways.

With some minor pentatonic basics under our belts, we can expand these ideas into something more sophisticated, using fast pentatonic flurries, as demonstrated in Ex. 10. Legendary bluesman Buddy Guy often plays fast flurries of notes, straight from the minor pentatonic scale. That means the shape feels familiar but you’ll be delivering more “angular” phrased licks.

Blues isn’t only about minor keys. Listen to Freddie King’s “Hide Away” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Need Your Love So Bad.” Both of these songs feature extensive use of the major pentatonic scale (intervallically spelled 1, 2, 3, 5, 6). The simple lick shown in Ex. 11 is designed to help get you started with this warm-sounding set of notes. Watch out though. There’s a bluesy minor note in there too – the 5th-fret C, right before the last dyad (two-note chord).

The previous lick hinted at an idea we’re going exploring more fully in our next example – mixing up parallel major and minor pentatonic scales in solos. Why bother? Well, the combination of “happy” major and “serious” minor scales sounds way more sophisticated than sticking to just one or the other. Ex. 12 keeps things simple, but this idea is a key part of blues, so experiment!

21st Century Blues

Whether it’s the fuzz-fuelled lo-fi riffing of the White Stripes and the Black Keys, or the Zeppelin-like hard rock sensibilities of Rival Sons and Greta Van Fleet, it’s fair to say that blues has evolved somewhat in recent years.

Though many of the chords and scales owe a debt to earlier forebears, many bands are putting their own stamp on blues with retro-inspired drive tones and tone-bending effects like octavers and wild fuzz distortions. Here we’re looking at a few of the tricks and riffing tropes of the current generation of blues players.

Dan Auerbach

Spiky fuzz distortion tones have been a big part of the signature retro sounds of the aforementioned bands. The riff shown in Ex. 14 is designed to make good use of a dirt pedal. If you’re using a regular drive pedal, keep the treble high, roll off a little bass and experiment with your amp’s EQ and gain.

From Robert Johnson and Elmore James to Derek Trucks, Gary Clark Jr. and Auerbach, slide guitar has long been at the heart of blues. The simple electric slide lick shown in Ex. 15 will help you develop this tricky technique.

Place your slide on your 3rd or 4th finger and aim directly over the fret you’re playing (not behind it). Use your 1st finger to dampen the strings behind the slide and suppress unwanted string noise and overtones. Additionally, it helps to use your pick hand to mute the strings your not playing on at the moment.

Contemporary bands’ minor pentatonic riffs owe as much to ’70s rock as they do to early blues. The pentatonic riff shown in Ex. 16 could easily be a Black Keys tune, a Led Zeppelin line, or you could slow it down and give it a traditional “Hoochie Coochie Man” treatment. It describes an E minor tonality, so the 6th string can be used as your tonal center to “bounce” the other notes off.

The advent of multi-track recording in the ’70s saw bands double-tracking guitar riffs. In recent years, duos like Royal Blood have used switching systems to recreate the effect in live performances. The layered riff in Ex. 17 is ideal for two guitars.

We take this idea further in Ex. 18. Here, we’re playing a simple melodic line on top of our previous riff. To make sure it stays riffy, we’re following the same rhythm for both lines – no solo widdle here! It’s based on the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D) throughout.

If you’re playing in a guitar-drums duo, White Stripes-style, you’ll need to fill out your sound. Ex. 19 covers plenty of notes to provide a full backing sound, then punctuating them with some fat-sounding power chords. For more weight, think about using an octaver effect as Jack White and Auerbach and Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr might do.

Even simple minor pentatonic licks can kick a song’s proverbial rear end. Ex. 20 demonstrates this with a lick inspired by Auerbach’s fretwork on the Black Keys song “Eagle Birds.”

Their amped-up electrified cousins may garner the lion’s share of modern limelight, but acoustic guitars and slides have gone hand in hand throughout the history of blues guitar, and they always will.

As we researched the last instalment of Acoustic Blues Musings on open roots tunings with the knowledge that this one would focus on slide, it was a challenge to find prime historic examples where the artist didn’t incorporate at least some bottleneck.

Here are a few that do, and a few more contemporary ones too…

Slide Blues Tunes

Back in 2018, Ben Harper told us, “Blind Willie Johnson is the mojo hand for steel guitar. Start with ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,’ tuned to open D. Low to high, it goes D A D F# A D. You can also take that tuning up or down a step, and it’s sometimes called Vestapol tuning.”

A fine folk blues example of Vestapol E would be Brian Jones’ slide on the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations.” For a cool Keef example on resonator in the open C tuning we touched on (low to high C G C G C E), check out the Stones’ dirge version of “You Gotta Move.” John Butler Trio’s “Betterman” is a good modern example on a 12-string (actually his 11-string Maton) guitar.

Open “Spanish” G (low to high, D G D G B D) is perhaps the most historic and common tuning used for songs like Robert Johnson’s original recording (and Led Zeppelin’s cover) of “Traveling Riverside Blues” (Johnson’s is either capoed up a step and a half, or the recording is sped up).

As noted in the last instalment of Acoustic Blues Musings, Son House’s “Death Letter Blues” is another seminal example. It also exemplifies the ripping sound of a resonator being played with a steel slide on the third finger, which leads to a deeper discussion.

Mojo Finger

Once in open tunings, the world of slide guitar is at one’s fingertips. Which finger you use is up to you, and the same basic considerations that apply to electric guitar apply to acoustic guitar as well.

With that said, most teachers would advise a slinky pinkie if possible, because it leaves the other three free to work behind the slide. Roy Rogers agrees. “I prefer the little finger so I can fret chords more easily than using, say, the third finger,” the Delta blues master says. “But, remember, there is no right way or wrong way. Players have to figure it out for themselves.” 

Since acoustic strings are heavier, there is obvious logic in using a thicker finger for more power, like Son House. Regardless of the digit, an acoustic produces far less sustain and significantly more string noise, so it’s perhaps even more important to be laser-focused on the fret line, pluck clean and true with perhaps a slightly heavier pick or more fingernail than one might on an electric, and use plenty of vibrato to create frictional string energy, like rubbing two sticks together.

Some players, like ace Sonny Landreth, swap slides when switching from an electric to an acoustic guitar. Next time we’ll delve deeper into how string and slide weights and materials factor into various approaches with more insights from Rogers, as well as hip tips from Landreth and the legendary Leo Kottke.

Further reading...

• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 1: How to Choose a Blues Box and the Strings to Make it Sing
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 2: Hip Tips and Tricks for Better Playing
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 3: Open Roots Tuning Tips
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 5: Choosing Strings & Slides

Son House (1902-1988) was a contemporary of some of the greatest Delta blues players that ever lived. Both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters were protégés, copping their style from his earlier groundbreaking efforts.

While House achieved localized notoriety early on, by the mid-‘40s music was no longer his main pursuit. However, his ‘rediscovery’ during the ‘60s folk/blues revival led to newfound success. Often quoted as a source of inspiration for hip blues guitar players, this renewed interest in the real-deal Delta bluesman meant his spellbinding talents were captured on film for posterity.

In this clip (featured on the Vestapol DVD Legends of Country Blues Guitar, Vol. One) House performs a killer version (no pun intended) of what has become known as his signature song, “Death Letter Blues.” Lyrically, "Death Letter" goes beyond heartbreak. Indeed, it’s a bona fide horror show. And the tense, frantic style in which he performs the number adds to its horrific undertone.

The tools of the trade are, in classic Delta blues style, a National resonator and slide. Check out this truly masterful performance…

The life of Son House was a colorful one. We all might think we know what a tough gig is, but while playing a juke joint in his mid-20s, House was caught up in a fatal shooting. Though hit in the leg he managed to defend himself against his assailant who was mortally wounded. Consequently, the budding guitar hero was handed a 15-year stretch at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He was, most fortunately, let out a year or two later.

From here he went on to record for Paramount Records alongside "Father of the Delta Blues" Charley Patton. These 1930 recordings are the stuff of legend…

Pick up a copy of Legends of Country Blues Guitar, Vol. 1 here.

Pick up the Son House Raw Delta Blues album here.

Playing blues on an acoustic guitar presents challenges as well as opportunities. It takes more mojo to bend a string or play a stretch chord, and getting great sustain isn’t as easy as adding gain to a signal chain. Using such challenges to your advantage is the name of the game. Here are a few tips and tricks to help you unleash your best blues on a “box” guitar.

Slip Sliding Away

Bending strings on a beastly acoustic can be a bitch, so it’s helpful to get a handle on glissando technique, sliding up or down a fret or two to achieve a bending effect.

For example, instead of starting on an E played with the first finger at the fifth fret of the second string, and then meeting the same note by bending the D at the seventh fret of the third string up a step with the third finger, simply slide it up that whole step; then, either make a quick jump back to the former position with the first finger on the fifth fret of the second string, or leave the third finger at the ninth fret of the second string and take advantage of the open E on the first string.

Take glissando technique to the next level and get out of the usual blues patterns by sliding your fingers through blues scales on just one or two strings, rather than playing phrases across several strings. This finger-sliding style facilitates more lyrical, bottleneck-like phrases right off the bat and leads to a deeper understanding of blues theory.

Sustainable Practices

Extended sustain is elusive on any acoustic, but each has its sweet spots. Explore the fretboard chromatically, making mental notes of which notes die fast and which ring out. Use the former as passing notes within phrases; the latter are ideal landing spots.

Avoid palm muting and notice how some notes will trigger open strings to ring out sympathetically, adding harmonic overtones and boosting sustain. If you’re a fingerpicker, using the thumb will naturally lead you to lift your palm. Plus, the thumbnail is ideal for a strong downstroke.

Substitute That Robert Johnson Move

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for the budding blues guitar enthusiast and the gigging pro alike is the classic Robert Johnson-style “Dust My Broom” move involving a basic 1-5 power-chord that then requires additional stretches to hit the 6 and, in turn, the b7 on the string above while keeping the root and 5 in place.

Its origins can be traced back to the piano, and it involves a high degree of difficulty on an electric guitar, let alone an ornery blues box or a callous-chewing 12 string. For a respite, try this old trick: Use the second finger to play the root, with the pinkie covering the 5 on the string above. This leaves the first finger to cover the 6 on the next highest string. Leave it there while lifting the pinkie and hitting the b7 up a half step with the third finger, all the while keeping the second finger on the root. This shortcut works rooted on either the sixth or fifth strings.

Focused palm muting while alternately lifting the pinkie is important for the standard shuffle. Experiment with open strings ringing above for a more progressive approach. This substitute still requires significant dexterity, but it’s an awesome alternative, especially for repeated use over the course of a song, a set or an entire gig full of acoustic blues. 

Keep an eye on the website for more acoustic-blues tuning and slide tips.

Further reading...

• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 1: How to Choose a Blues Box and the Strings to Make it Sing
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 3: Open Roots Tuning Tips
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 4: Slide Song Suggestions
• Acoustic Blues Musings, Part 5: Choosing Strings & Slides

Born John Dawson Winter III in Beaumont, Texas in 1944, Johnny Winter was an early starter, picking up the guitar in his pre-teen years. At the age of 14, he formed his first band - Johnny and the Jammers – and recorded his first album at the tender age of 15.

Learning the ropes of club gigging in his formative years Winter soon began to sharpen up his act. “You had to be able to play a lot of different things in the clubs or you’d get killed,” he told Guitarist magazine in 1992.

Winter’s rollercoaster life took him on an incredible journey full of highs as he maintained his love for performing live throughout, from the festival stage of Woodstock to the B.B. King Blues Club. Gigging really was the lifeblood of his musical career.

Sadly, the great bluesman passed away on July 16, 2014, aged 70. He had given his final show only two days prior at the Cahors Blues Festival in France, and the amazing rendition of Robert Johnson's “Dust My Broom” captured here proves Winter was able to deliver inspirational performances right up until the end.

Though clearly suffering from ill health in his later years Winter continued to dazzle crowds with his incredible slide licks – his matchless tone shining through as he tore up and down the neck of a ‘reverse’ Gibson Firebird V.

Winter’s killer slide playing inspired generations of blues guitar fans, cementing his status as one of the most influential guitarists in music history. And in honor of the great man himself, the Gibson Custom Shop has recently announced the release of the Johnny Winter 1964 Firebird V replica guitar.

Head over to Gibson for more information on the Gibson Johnny Winter 1964 Firebird V. You can currently order an instrument from this limited run of 125 Murphy Lab replica guitars from Guitar Center here. 

In the blues - music that, according to Willie Dixon, “tells the truth” - it’s advisable to start with blue notes as opposed to blues notes. The order truly distinguishes the “real deal” of the blues from other forms of music.

As America’s most original art form, the blues results from the glorious commingling of African and Anglo influences. It’s an oversimplification to say that its basic harmony (I–IV–V) comes from Europe and its melody (the blues scale) from Africa, but that’s a start.

The blues scale - perhaps derived from Middle Eastern pentatonic scales, and shown in Figure 1 - appeared initially in the field hollers of slaves. Prominent in this scale are the “blues notes”: the b3rd (Bb), b7th (F) and b5th (Db) [Figure 1B]. These notes give the scale a distinctive dissonance, particularly when played against major chords.

When emancipated blacks switched from banjo to guitar after the Civil War, they eventually began to imitate bluesy vocal swoops by bending the strings. Pioneering blues guitar players became focused on the b3rd and b7th notes [Figure 1C], which they idiosyncratically bent the microtone of a quarter step. 

These “true blue notes” are located in between the b3rd and major 3rd, and between the b7th and major 7th, respectively, and help to produce the profound sound of the blues.

Here we have a few classic licks that feature blue notes. In Figure 2, the bent b3rd (Bb) resolves to the root (G) in measure 1, whereas the bent b7th (F) in measure 2 hangs suspended, creating vibrant musical tension and anticipation. Most blues cats pull down on the b3rd with their index finger and bend the b7th up with their ring finger or pinkie.

In the mid Sixties, master string-bender Albert King regularly squeezed out tart licks similar to the ones in Figure 3. 

Again, the bent b3rd resolves to the root, though placing the root up an octave, on beat 1 of measure 1, gives a feeling of uplift, not finality. The bending of the b3rd on the high E string, followed in measure 2 with resolution to the root on the B string, is an oft-imitated King trademark.

Chicago West Siders Magic Sam, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy favored blue note–laced descending runs, as shown in Figure 4. Dig the less-common b7th bend, with resolution to the root, in measure 2 (4th string), a Freddie King favorite.

Trains figure both lyrically and musically in the blues, and blues guitarists often emulate steam whistles. Dyads like those in Figure 5 - found in Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” - enable this effect. As usual, both the bent b7th and bent b3rd (last half of measure 1) resolve to the root (measure 2).

The life of Robert Johnson, the guitarist Eric Clapton once called “the most important blues musician who ever lived,” has always been shrouded in a fair amount of mystery.

Johnson only ever recorded 29 songs, and died at the age of 27 under mysterious circumstances. Furthermore, only two photographs of Johnson were thought to exist - until now that is.

For the cover of her upcoming memoir, Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson, Johnson's step-sister, Annye Anderson, used a photograph Johnson took of himself in a nickel portrait booth in Memphis.

Anderson, now 94, decided to publicly release the photograph after all these years to show the world another side of her stepbrother, whose sold-his-soul-to-the-devil-for-his-talent legend has grown with each passing decade. She also shared the story of the photograph in her book, an excerpt of which can be read below, via Vanity Fair.

"There was a make-your-own-photo place on Beale Street, near Hernando Street. I’ve since learned that a man named John Henry Evans owned it," Anderson said. "The photo place was right next door to Pee Wee’s, the bar where Mr. Handy wrote his blues. 

"One day when I was 10 or 11 years old, I walked there with Sister Carrie and Brother Robert. I remember him carrying his guitar and strumming as we went. You just walk in, drop a nickel in the slot, pull the curtain, and do it. There was no photographer. I had my picture made. Brother Robert got in the booth, and evidently made a couple.

"I kept Brother Robert’s photograph in my father’s trunk that sat in the hallway of the Comas house while we lived there with my mother after my father died. After my mother died, we could only take so many things. I took my photographs with me, wrapped in a handkerchief.

"I only carried a few belongings to Ma and Pops Thompson’s house. When I moved in with my sister Charlyne, I bought some furniture. I stored the photograph, along with others, in a cedar chest I bought. I’ve always had this photograph.

"It shows Brother Robert the way I remember him - open, kind and generous. He doesn’t look like the man of all the legends, the man described as a drunkard and a fighter by people who didn’t really know him. This is my brother Robert."

Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson is set for a June 9 release via Hachette Books. You can preorder it here.

Anytime you draw up a list of the “greatest” guitarists of all time—or in this case “most influential”—passions are bound to be ignited one way or the other.

After all, we each have our own favorites, whether it be a particular player, style or era. However, that doesn’t mean such a list can’t be based on some element of objective reasoning. To some extent, the proof is in all of us: anyone who picks up the instrument borrows at least a handful of techniques and stylistic tendencies that someone else brought to the table. The key is determining which guitarists have had the most impact among the larger number of players—in other words, who has contributed most across the board to the way we approach the instrument.

One thing is for certain: if the following musicians are not the 12 most influential guitarists of all time, they are certainly 12 of the most influential.

Regardless of their respective styles, all are players who have excited the imagination and kindled the flame to pick up the instrument in countless individuals. By singling them out, we honor their contributions and, at the same time, bring to mind great guitar music we have treasured.

ROBERT JOHNSON
Robert Johnson is the greatest blues guitarist of all time and one of rock’s founding fathers from the pre-World War II Delta blues era. While his haunting and suggestive lyrics have inspired singers in all genres, it’s his virtuoso and innovative solo guitar playing that places him on this list.

Three recording sessions between 1936 and 1937 produced 29 songs, including the verifiable classics “(I Believe I’ll) Dust My Broom,” “Sweet Home Chicago,’” “Walkin’ Blues,” “Love in Vain” and “Crossroad Blues.” His popularization of cut boogie patterns presaged electric Chicago blues and rock and roll, while his fretted and slide guitar licks are so timeless that they still show up in contemporary music.

The first guitar hero, Johnson had the attitude to go with the chops. His tragic death in 1938 at the age of 27 has made him an icon for those who also mourn Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.

In the style of Robert Johnson:

CHARLIE CHRISTIAN
When Charlie Christian got on the bandstand with Benny Goodman in 1939, he single-handedly propelled the electric guitar into the mainstream. Though he wasn’t the first guitarist to plug in and play electrified, Christian’s performances as a soloist on Goodman tracks like “Flying Home” and “Honeysuckle Rose” document the first instances that the electric guitar was used effectively as a lead instrument in a Big Band setting.

The increased volume and sustain that amplification offered put the guitar on a level playing field with customary soloing instruments like the trumpet and saxophone, and Christian’s participation in early bebop jam sessions alongside such luminaries as Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie also makes him one of the founding fathers of the genre.

Sadly, Christian died from tuberculosis at 26. HIs body of work inspired a generation of jazz guitar giants, including Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow and Jim Hall.

In the style of Charlie Christian:

B.B. KING
Every guitarist who bends or vibratoes a string to make it sing owes a debt to B.B. King. With influences as diverse as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, the late guitarist turned the blues world upside down in 1952 with “3 O’Clock Blues.” Almost overnight, the harmonica was supplanted as the primary solo instrument in blues, as guitarists scrambled to imitate B.B.’s soloing style, especially in Chicago.

In 1970, B.B. crossed over to the white rock audience with “The Thrill Is Gone.” In 1988, he virtually repeated the trick when he recorded “When Love Comes to Town” with U2. Always the humble student of the instrument, B.B. King became jazzier and better than ever as his life and career continued well into the new century. His loss earlier this year was deeply felt by the music community and, particularly, by the guitarist he influenced.

In the style of B.B. King:

CHET ATKINS
Chet Atkins made countless recordings as a studio musician and solo artist, beginning in the Forties. In fact, much of the session work he recorded and/or produced in Nashville with artists like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers laid the foundation for early rock and roll.

Though comfortable playing many styles, Atkins was most often associated with country music and the acoustic guitar. By using a combination of his fingers and a thumb pick, he created his signature “fingerpicking” sound—a style somewhat inspired by fellow guitarist Merle Travis. Atkins even recorded a duo album with Travis, as well as with other respected guitarist like Doc Watson, Les Paul, Jerry Reed and Mark Knopfler.

A guitar legend, Atkins was elected to the Country Music Hal of Fame in 1973. His musical contributions inspired artists ranging from Eric Johnson to the late Lenny Breau. In virtually any high-end music store, you can still find Chet Atkins signature model guitars, which Gibson and Gretsch designed to his specifications.

In the style of Chet Atkins:

CHUCK BERRY
The first popular performer to sing, play and write his own material, Chuck Berry roared into rock and roll in 1955 with the country two-beat rhythms of “Maybellene” and claimed the genre for his own. His influences were similar to those of B.B. King but also include jump blues and country-and-western music.

It was Berry’s songs from the late Fifties with cut boogie patterns—like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Johnny B. Goode” and “Carol”—that realized electrically the guitar ambitions first dreamt by Robert Johnson. Berry’s tone—courtesy of a hollow-body Gibson through a tweed Fender amp—was raw and loud. This, along with his duckwalk, ringing double-stops and songs about cars and girls, grabbed the youth market. Tall and handsome, he brought the guitar as the “cool” instruments to a ready audience via appearances on TV and in movies, in a way that the Beatles would repeat in the early Sixties.

In the style of Chuck Berry:

WES MONTGOMERY
John Leslie “Wes” Montgomery first picked up the guitar in 1943, at the relatively late age of 19. He honed his chops by emulating his hero, Charlie Christian, and got his first paying gig by playing Christian’s solos note for note.

Unlike Christian, however, Montgomery used his thumb instead of a pick to create the percussive-yet-warm tone associated with his style. (According to interviews, Wes learned to play with his thumb because it created a softer sound, appeasing his neighbors.) With his phenomenal ear, Wes quickly grew beyond his influences and developed a style all his own. His knack for melody, groundbreaking use of octaves in a soloing context and intricate chord solos—as demonstrated in his devastating interpretations of standards like “Round Midnight” and “Days of Wine and Roses”—broadened the range of guitar, pushing the instrument into unchartered territory.

Montgomery died in 1968 at the pinnacle of his career. his musicality has inspired a broad range of jazz guitarists, including George Benson, Joe Diorio and Pat Metheny.

In the style of Wes Montgomery:

ERIC CLAPTON
Bluesy British bloke Eric Clapton has been a household name since his recording debut with the Yardbirds in 1963. During the mid Sixties, his legendary performances with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Cream established him as a pioneer of the modern electric blues and rock guitar.

In the Seventies, Clapton’s work with Derek and the Dominos and his first solo albums added a slew of masterpieces like “Layla” and “Lay Down Sally” to classic rock’s repertoire. The Eighties also saw Clapton’s music featured in movies (The Hit in 1984 and Lethal Weapon in 1987) and commercials (“After Midnight” for Michelob in 1987), while a string of albums produced by Phil Collins established Clapton as a pop/rock icon.

After championing the “unplugged” phenomenon in the early Nineties with his MTV Unplugged concert, Clapton returned to his roots with From the Cradle. He has since helped keep the blues alive with his annual three-day Crossroads festival, which features both Clapton and a host of established and upcoming blues guitarists.

Regardless of the musical format, Eric Clapton has always kept his brilliant blues-inspired guitar playing in the forefront, influencing the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang and countless others.

In the style of Eric Clapton:

JIMI HENDRIX
In his early days, Jimmy James, as he was then known, played in rhythm sections, backing artists like Little Richard, B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner. It isn’t until 1966, when he moved to London and formed the Experience, that Jimi Hendrix was able to cut loose and start getting the attention he deserved for his magnificent guitar work. Alarmingly, Hendrix was virtually unknown in the U.S. until he played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—the legendary performance in which he doused his Fender Stratocaster with lighter fluid and set it on fire.

Though he was influenced by everyone from B.B. King to Muddy Waters to Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, Hendrix’s complete artistic vision included elements of blues, funk, rock, psychedelia and utter chaos. His frequent use of effects like the wah and Octavia pedal, pioneering studio effects like “backward” guitar and flanging, and use of controlled feedback and the tremolo bar added another dimension to his music.

Hendrix also had a beautifully subtle side, as depicted in tracks like “Little Wing,” “Bold As Love” and “Castles Made of Sand.” He died on September 18, 1970. During his brief stay on this planet, he had a profound impact on musicians ranging from Miles Davis to Eric Johnson to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In the style of Jimi Hendrix:

JIMMY PAGE
Jimmy Page is one of rock music’s ultimate riff masters, guitar orchestrators and studio revolutionaries. His vast body of work with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin exhibits the type of wild abandon often associated with Jimi Hendrix, the passion and grit of a seasoned bluesman, and the sensitivity of a folk musician.

Extremely eclectic, Page has a diverse array of guitaristic influences, which includes blues guitarists Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Hubert Sumlin as well as early rockabilly guitarists Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore. He combined these influences with a strong interest in the occult and plenty of his own studio savvy to paint a musical landscape within every Led Zeppelin song. Page’s landmark use of echo effects in tracks like “How Many More Times” and “You Shook Me,” bizarre tunings in cuts like “Friends” and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” and excursions with a violin bow in songs like “Dazed and Confused” yielded textures that were unparalleled at the time.

Although Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 after drummer John Bonham’s death, they have reunited on a few occasions, most recently in 2007 for a tribute concert in memory of Ahmet Ertegun, who had signed them to Atlantic and launched their career. Page continues to go strong. After reissuing the band’s catalog in 2014 and 2015, he’s promised a new project to come in 2016. We couldn’t be happier, and more eager to hear what he has.

In the style of Jimmy Page:

EDDIE VAN HALEN
Believe it or not, Eddie Van Halen hadn’t even heard rock music until he and his family moved from the Netherlands to Pasadena California in 1967. After hearing Cream, he quickly abandoned piano and drums for the guitar, learning the instrument by picking licks off records by Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. These influences were merely a springboard, though. Eddie was quickly able to put his own mark on everything he played.

Today, Van Halen is one of rock’s most influential and imitated innovators. As unpredictable and flamboyant as Hendrix, Van Halen has had an unmeasurable impact on the guitar community. By the mid Eighties, his self-described “brown” sound, over-the-top techniques (including two-handed tapping), and revolutionary trem-bar effects inspired a generation of aspiring guitarists who bought the one-pickup, one-volume-knob, Floyd Rose–equipped Strat-style guitars that Van Halen made famous.

For a taste of Ed at his most smoking, check out “Eruption,” “Spanish Fly,” “Cathedral” and the intros to “Mean Street” and “Little Guitars.”

In the style of Eddie Van Halen:

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN
Stevie Ray Vaughan played blues like a man possessed. The perfect combination of chops, taste, conviction, tone and showmanship, Vaughan and his ’59 Fender Stratocaster exposed a whole new generation of listeners to the blues and, in turn, Stevie’s own influences: Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy.

Initially inspired by his older brother Jimmie, Stevie picked up the guitar at an early age and was playing in bands by the time he was 12. By the time he formed his legendary trio Double Trouble in 1980, Stevie Ray Vaughan was already a legend in his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. After hearing and seeing Vaughan playing at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival, pop icon David Bowie invited Stevie to play on his Let’s Dance album. Vaughan’s career took off form there.

His first solo album, Texas Flood, was released in 1983 and featured blistering renditions of “Testify” and “Texas Flood” as well as now-classic originals like “Pride and Joy” and “Lenny.” Several other successful solo albums followed. On August 27, 190, Vaughan perished in a helicopter crash while returning form a gig he shared with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray.

In the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan:

YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN
An import from Sweden, Yngwie J. Malmsteen specializes in what many regard as “Bach and Roll,” or neoclassical rock—a style of music that features furiously fast scalar and arpeggiated sequences reminiscent of the Bach and Paganini virtuoso organ and violin works written in the 18th century.

After moving to the U.S. for brief stints with the group’s Steeler and Alcatrazz, Malmsteen flew his old Swedish bandmates out to the states and reformed Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force, releasing the band’s self-titled debut in 1984.

Yngwie’s staggering virtuosity, as exemplified on the track “Far Beyond the Sun,” inspired countless guitarists to refine their alternate-picking and sweep-picking chops. Some even went as far as to scallop their fretboards, carving out the wood between the frets in a crescent, as Malmsteen does, to facilitate playing with a lighter touch.

The mass appeal that Yngwie achieved among guitarists in the mid-to-late Eighties opened up the market for other burning shredders like Vinnie Moore, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker, among others.

In the style of Yngwie Malmsteen: