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I am wanting to learn the style of country blues guitar. I am quite knowledgeable about the guitar but country blues guitar is new to me.
Can you help with the following questions regarding that style:
a) Who are the best players to listen to?
b) Tuning? Are there different tunings?
c) Tutorial books to get?
d) Is ragtime guitar closely related?
Many thanks.
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06-05-2023 10:44 AM
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Really focus on getting the shuffle rhythm correct. The hardest part about learning online is no instructor feedback. I tried to learn the shuffle rhythm online and when I went to a real teacher I was shocked at how bad I was. He straightened me out thank god but it took time to break bad habits.
I also took online lessons for a while from Keith Wyatt on Artistworks. He is amazing and might be the best blues teacher in the world. On Artistworks you can send him a video of your playing and he will send you feedback. Or get a real teacher.
tldr: Work on shuffle rhythm until it is perfect and internalized. You need to really feel that rhythm before adding more complex fills/turnarounds etc.
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I find this topic interesting. Can you offer a couple of youtube videos of the style you're talking about?
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Is this what is often referred to as "Delta Blues?" Acoustic guitar, often a solo performer, slide, open tunings, etc?
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a) Mississippi John Hurt is a great guy to start copping if you like his stuff. He’s more “country blues” than “delta blues.” But those labels have limited value. He was an acoustic blues guy who lived in the rural south, and covered more than one style. His original songs are gems.
b) Tunings are usually standard, and sometimes open G or similar.
c) Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop has been the top source of instruction in this area for decades.
Stefan Grossman'''s Guitar Videos
d) Yes, ragtime is related. Check out the recordings of Blind Blake. He would be on my short list of “greatest guitar player ever”, based on his wondrous arrangements and fluid fast playing always within a groove, sounding like it’s easy, matching the feel of the song. Lots of rag changes here that are lovely.
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Have a listen to Son House, Robert Johnson and Lightnin' Hopkins-for a start.
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I recommend learning to Travis pick. In my experience this is the best way for a solo player to provide strong, flowing accompaniment for lots of styles, but especially country blues. I love John Hurt and this is the ideal picking style for his tunes.
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Listen to Elizabeth Cotton, Blind Blake, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Comer 'Moon' Mullins, Eddie Pennington, Mose Rager, Ike Everly, Mississippi John Hurt, and Kennedy Jones. I lean toward the actual 'Travis' style, not the misnamed folk fingerpicking style of the 1960s - whole different deal as the true 'Travis style' relies on a heavy alternating right hand thumb. Moon Mullins has a video course on You Tube that gives a great overview on the style. Also, Alonzo Pennington, Eddie's son, has some good videos teaching the style. I've been playing this style for over 50 years and, once you get the thumb down, you can do a lot of stuff including veering off into ragtime. Good luck!!
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Some tutorial books available that can assist you in learning country blues guitar are "The Complete Country Blues Guitar Book" by Stefan Grossman, "The Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar: The Basics" by Woody Mann, and "Fingerstyle Blues Songbook" by Stefan Grossman and Happy Traum.
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There are many more styles than just that from the Mississippi delta. E.g. above mentioned Lightnin' Hopkins was from Texas.
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I love the roughness of this music. In the late 80ies I was so bored from the slick pop music that I listened only to traditional folk blues and city blues (Chicago, Detroit, L.A: etc.).
Listening to blues taught me a lot about groove and phrasing.
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Good open tunings for slide:
Open E -> E B E G# B E (low to high)
or
Open D -> D A D F# A D
depending on how much pressure your guitar can take;
Open G -> D G D G B D
[BTW Open G is the one Keith Richards started to use almost always all the time after a certain point in time (taking off the lowest string and later using custom built 5-string guitars). You can play many Stones riffs with just too grips with this tuning: barre with only index and then play a grip that looks like the Am7 barre type for standard tuning -- instant Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Honky Tonk Women.]
Lightning Hopkins and John Lee Hooker used Standard Tuning most of the time. That style later inspired a certain James Marshall Hendrix:
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Listening to country blues could maybe heal jazz guitarists from the pandemic of the human groove deficiency virus infection a.k.a. rubato desease.
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Players:
Listen not only to guitar playing, but also to singers (!!!), harmonica, piano, kazoo, etc. to really get a feeling for the music.
Do not forget a lot of it was also dance music:
An album that inspired me a lot:
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^ I love that porch stuff. Very cool. That last tune is the basic cycle in a rag tune.
Like this:
But as Jerry Garcia said, John Hurt’s early playing was “perfect.”
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This is the original "Salty Dog": Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
I have forgotten where I read /heard that Gershwin modelled I got rhythm after such tunes.
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The music of McKinley Morganfield that was recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress before "Muddy Waters" moved to Chicago to find work there was not so much different from most of the stuff he later recorded with a band for the label of the Czyz (better known as Chess) brothers in the Windy City.
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Something in Delta born Sunnyland Slim's banging into the keys always reminds me of Thelonious Monk.
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I have taken a deep dive into this style and have purchased many of the instructional sources out there. PM if you you prefer physical products as I am willing to sell my collection for a reasonable price. I have collected way to many DVDs and books.
Which brings up a good point. This style does not translate well to the written page. Watching/listening is the key.
For starting out I highly recommend Roy Bookbinder’s instructional tapes. He has two but the first one will get you started. They are available on Homespun whose digital platform if very good. Here is a sample
Secondly I would also recommend Stefan Grossman’s How to Play Blues series of tapes.
Graduate/Doctorate school is Blind Blake.
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It may be the original recording, but the song existed long before. Which is so often the case with those old blues numbers. Everyone was Led Zeppelin! Originally Posted by Bop Head
“Papa Charlie Jackson recorded an adaptation for Paramount and Broadway in 1924.[2] According to Jas Obrecht, "Old-time New Orleans musicians from Buddy Bolden’s era recalled hearing far filthier versions of 'Salty Dog Blues' long before Papa Charlie’s recording."[3] “
Salty Dog Blues - Wikipedia
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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There is tons of great free stuff online. Start there. This type of music is easy to understand, and just takes practice. It’s about groove, basic syncopation, and the touch of your picking hand.
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I'm going to get that Bookbinder tape (DVD, whatever it is now). Originally Posted by alltunes
I'm mainly an electric guy but I often write songs on acoustic guitar and am always on the lookout for a few more things to do to get from one chord to the next (runs, fills, bass lines, flourishes.) It's not what I grew up focusing on (-I was a Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Elmore James, and Allman Brothers guy) but the older I get, the more I'm drawn to "one guy sitting down with a guitar (that sounds like a guitar and not like an amp) and playing a song."
Mickey and Sylvia said "Love Is Strange." Life is too...
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I did one of the Stefan Grossman books on John Hurt. I learned how to do the alternate bass with my thumb via working on it and seeing other Nashville players do it first hand in person. But the book, it was full of errors, pitifully so. Actually the Guitar Workshop stuff as a whole is full of mistakes, omissions, glossing over, etc. Not really a very quality series considering the price and hype. I had the John Hurt book and the Ernie Hawkins Blind Blake DVD, among viewing some of the other vids. The Blake stuff was better but doesn't really explore the compositions in depth so you're basically left to improvise the remainder of the song sections that aren't taught as it's just pieces of songs. Probably wouldn't buy any of the Stefan Grossman stuff again.
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I wonder if you have any examples of the mistakes. At any rate, there are plenty of free videos on YouTube by Stefan Grossman, and others in his workshop. Originally Posted by DawgBone
Keep in mind that Stefan knew Mississippi John Hurt very well, had him staying in his place for awhile, and lended him his OM-45 for Hurt’s three Vanguard albums. He also knew Reverend Gary Davis and took lessons from him.
You could be right that there are typos, and so forth. The books tend to date from the 70s. Stefan has long since moved to videos.
But to tell the truth, most country blues is very easy to learn by ear. Once you know the tuning and the positions, you can’t fail to get the notes. It comes down to baby steps and practice. It takes a long time to make it sound easy and to give it the right accent and feel.
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Here’s a great tune to start with. It is the first finger picking song I learned, long before the Internet.
It’s an example of the basic syncopation that is the foundation of most of this music.
You could call it Travis picking, but it predates him by a long ways.
The song is in the key of C and played out of the cowboy chord C position. The changes are obvious, all cowboy chords.
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