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Well known you can't really feel the blues until you've got type 2 diabetes.
Players like SRV and Hendrix were channelling some more traditional blues licks but speeded up so listening to their influences probably isn't a bad idea. Lot of Albert King in both of them, both big Hubert Sumlin fans as well.
Can be worth trying a solo using only downpicking, slows you down and it's closer to the unorthodox techniques of Albert and Freddie King and Albert Collins. Works well with rakes as well, although another thing not to over do.
Yay me !
Yeah I think posting a clip would be good. Blues lead playing doesn't stick to any particular rhythm, it's kind of slow, then possibly bursts of speed, but not shred speed. It's bending in between the bends. Less gain that you think, slide up to notes, hold notes and squeeze the life out of them. But I think one of the most important things is the gaps; play the silences and let the music breathe. Robben Ford has a great vid on Truefire about pentatonic playing, about creatiing music out of five notes, rather than just blasting around a scale and making a sound that should sound like blues. It's a simple music, but the devil is in the detail.
You might start to internalise some of it that way
Also, with someone like BB King he mixes both the minor and major pentatonic into his soloing ideas.
Also as @BigLicks67 has said, listen to Peter Green. The Best of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac really does have all of Peter Green's best stuff. Also, whereas Clapton sticks mostly to minor pentatonics, Peter Green relies a lot on 6ths and 9ths for a different kind of bluesy feel.
Apart from that, some of the early electric blues like Albert, BB, and Freddie King for the guitar licks but also listen to people like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters for a feel of what was going on back then.
First things first.
Clapton. Beano album.
1. Steppin Out
2. Hideaway
Find the tab, listen to the record, learn them note for note, and ALSO the phrasing.
There is a lot more, but if you studied both those songs you'd be well on your way.
Just my 2c
Less is more. If you can naturally play fast, don't. Blues solos should work up to fast. A solo is supposed to be you saying something. Start fast and you've nowhere to go.
Because I cannot play fast (maybe lack of practise, maybe lack of ability) I have to compensate by making everything count.
Very first things first.
Learn how to play one note 12 different ways. BB could. Own it. So Bend up to it, lower off to it, slide up slide down to it. Slow vibrato, fast vibrato, hammer on pull off. Above all play the note as if it was the last note the audience would hear from you.
Learn which notes resolve and which create tension over which chord.
Learn how to leave gaps, some so long that it seems like you've forgotten to play. Don't feel as though you need to start on bar 1 beat 1. Come in early, come in late. Don't be afraid to hold your last note hanging in the air when the singer has already started.
Learn to play a wrong note and bend up to a right one. Then do it again to show it wasn't a mistake.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.