interesting blues rhythm song suggestions please

nickp

If i wanted to become a good blues/rhythm player - not just bloody shuffles in A but a broader more funky/jazzy/interesting route taking in an interesting bunch of styles then maybe the best idea is to learn and play along with a bunch of songs.

in which case would anyone care to suggest songs which feature cool, nice, tasty, funky, jazzy, chord/lead combo to learn 

i'll start - texas shuffle with lots of muting and open string rakes and a good swing = pride n joy SRV (it's tough to get the muting to happen nicely)

KKJale

This might fit the bill... Buddy Guy behind Big Mama Thornton with a really cool, string-rakey, minimal kinda thang going on...

HAL9000

Robert Cray. Bluesy player but with a big dollop of soul and a smattering of jazz thrown in. Plus some interesting chord voicings, 

viz

Look up jazz blues backing tracks on ewe-chewb, the 6251 turnaround will open new doors for you

ArchtopDave

Two guitarists spring to mind. Robben Ford, and Matt Schofield.  Robben Ford has some courses on TrueFire and a Matt Schofield one will be out in in a week’s time, which I’ve preordered.

Lewy

I often find that when I hear someone playing great jazzy or funky blues, it turns out that that's because they play great funk and jazz and really listen to a lot of that stuff, whereas a lot of people decide "I'm a blues musician" and close themselves off from influences outside the genre. So my advice if you want to get some jazzy/funky feel would be to play along to something like Herbie Hancock "Headhunters" album. Most people doing something interesting in a non-traditional way with the blues are drawing on much wider influences.

Caffeine_Vampire

Best way to become a better guitar player? Don’t listen to other guitarists. I steal exclusively from sax players and humbly try to translate onto guitar. It gives you a different ‘voice’. King Curtis is my go-to. 

nickp

Lewy said:

I often find that when I hear someone playing great jazzy or funky blues, it turns out that that's because they play great funk and jazz and really listen to a lot of that stuff, whereas a lot of people decide "I'm a blues musician" and close themselves off from influences outside the genre. So my advice if you want to get some jazzy/funky feel would be to play along to something like Herbie Hancock "Headhunters" album. Most people doing something interesting in a non-traditional way with the blues are drawing on much wider influences.

i love that album!!

nickp

thank you folks

nickp

some really great ideas thank you - sax players are often so much better soliosts than guitarists .  Some of Robert Cray is kinda interesting - miserable lirics a lot of the time!

Boromedic

Slight thread derail here.... 

I'm an intermediate rock player but looking to finally learn Blues and figure I need to start right at the beginning tbh. I have the old Fastfingers complete Bluesman that I copied onto my computer but it seems very 12 bar orientated and a bit dull if I'm honest.  Anyone have any recommendations at all? I was tempted by that Schofield video lesson but think it might be too in depth at the mo. However Truefire have a sale on and 99usd year long access available. Would that include that video as well? 

Cheers!

nickp

truefire - i have subscribed on and off - for 15 a month or therabouts you can stream all of their courses and watch then via their sort of you-tube alike player that they have - truefire tv.  that's great.  i find that they have loads of different courses, badly described with lots of bollocks and hype and little proper detail of the content and they go a bit slow, but that's my personal view.  the andy timmons blues rhythm series i did some of and that was good however.  

what do you know at the moment?  are you fluent in the pentatonic minor in all positions?  can you play it in 3rds fourths, and sequences?  if not then i'd suggest that you spend woodshed time learning the pentatonic scale properly and practicing it in different ways and couple that with learning a bunch of songs with differing rhythm approaches perhaps - my thoughts anyway

Boromedic

Cheers @nickp that's good info.

I'm fluent with 3 positions of the Pentatonic minor at the mo, I'm confused by what you mean about 3rds, 4ths and sequences though? I've been looking mostly at the Blues Scale of late but obviously that's closely linked anyway.

Thanks for the tips though, much appreciated.

nickp

so rather than just go up and down the pentatonic in each position.  once you can do that in all 5 positions playing along to a metromone (so you know you really know it!) then play it in more interesting and useful ways.

you can sequence the scale in patterns.  eg

threes , fours, fives and 6 - here's a video example of groups of 5 - there are others about other patterns: 

maybe start with sequences of three in all positions, then fours, then sixes.  fives are a bit of a bugger.  This is a favourite of eric johnson and bonamassa - this sort of sequenced runs.

you can also look at intervals so play the scale in thirds or fourths - so a fourth would be (in A) play the root on the 6th string then the fourth above (same fret 5th string) 

here's a video



by boring yourself shitless doing this stuff over an extended period and using a metronome you'll really internalise the scale 

don't forget to play songs and practice improv and have fun as well as playing to a metronome

Boromedic

That's amazing, thanks mate

bingefeller

Kirk Fletcher's Hal Leonard book Burning Blues Guitar sounds perfect for you.  It doesn't contain well known songs, just short instrumentals, but there are loads of good licks in the book. 

There are some samples on the Hal Leonard site - https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=144038&lid=11&keywords=guitar

Boromedic

bingefeller said:

Kirk Fletcher's Hal Leonard book Burning Blues Guitar sounds perfect for you.  It doesn't contain well known songs, just short instrumentals, but there are loads of good licks in the book. 

There are some samples on the Hal Leonard site - https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=144038&lid=11&keywords=guitar

Cool, thanks!