Solo Blues Guitar

[Atticus]

After spending a week hanging out with an amazing blues pianist, I've been listening to a lot of old blues records. I'm particularly interested in solo performers like Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker. There's definitely some relation to jazz, but the blues is a lot more unrefined and emotive than playing the same song (say, Every Day I Have the Blues) in a jazz style.

I'm looking for more material on learning this style, particularly playing boogie rhythms and walking bass while soloing, similar to chord melodies but much more blues-centric. It's certainly easier to play verses since even terrible singers like me can handle blues melodies fairly well, but there's a lot more involved.

[Jonzo]

I have Art of the Shuffle: An Exploration of Shuffle, Boogie and Swing Rhythms, which might fit the bill. One disadvantage is that there are only "example" tunes--no famous tunes.

You can search individual musicians on Amazon and find a lot of transcriptions. I have seen Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and many others. You can also search by genre: Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, Country Blues, Piedmont Blues, Swing Blues, Texas Blues.

[Al_F]

Lots of good instructional material on Stefan's Grossman's site. I have one of his course, its all old songs, nice arraignments, and is lots of fun to play.

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