The Blues Guitarist
Part I
By www.fretmentor.com
The Guitar is one of the most diverse instruments to learn and play. This diversity is what attracts many students towards the instrument. The preferred genre varies from country, bluegrass, pop, jazz, reggae, classical, folk, rock to blues. This article will focus on the early blues; its history and the people who influenced the genre.
The origin of the blues coincidentally mirrors the origin of the banjo in its transition to America from the Western Coast of Africa. Blues music evolved from southern states within North America by black musicians who worked as slaves. What every modern guitar player should know, is that the history of blues guitar was shaped by poor and humble artists who came to develop a sound that has influenced so many today.
Early Blues
The early form of blues music, unlike today's modern blues style, was born on the cotton plantation, small town or farms, and the rural areas of the south. Blues tunes went back to the nineteenth century, to the beginnings of slavery. Yet, black singers engaged in "work songs" and "hollers" into the twentieth century. The lyrics of the guitarist were central to the blues tunes, with the blues man singing his poetic phrases. It is the early heritage of these songs that continues to be reborn today.
So, who are some of the earliest pioneers of the blues guitar? Let's take a look.
Charley Patton
(1887-1934)
One of the earliest blues artists from the Mississippi Delta region. It is in the Mississippi Delta region where "Delta Blues" was born. Patton was a stage musician who played country blues, ragtime, and spirituals. He recorded gospel works under the name of Elder JJ Hadley1. Patton was an innovator and master of the Delta Blues sound.
Patton utilized open tuning slides and played finger style guitar. In addition, he snapped his strings with his fingers and tapped the guitar like a drum. Some could argue that his use of percussion as a guitar technique was unique for his time. He exhibited thumb technique, the plucking of strings and the banging on the guitar to created accented counter rhythms in his performances.
Some of Patton's tunes included "Revenue Man Blues", "Pea Vine Blues", "Hang It On The Wall" and a commercial hit called "High Water Everywhere" which documented the 1927 Flood of the Mississippi Delta region. A haunting tune entitled, "Oh Death" was a call and response song about his recently departed wife.
Patton reached commercial success through a style called "Pony Blues". While some have seen the late great Jimmy Hendrix and others play the guitar behind their back, it was Patton who was first seen as performing with stage tricks of this type. His gritty, guttural sound demonstrated a raw talent bursting with energy.
Blind Lemon
Jefferson
(1897-1929)
An American blues singer and guitar player from the Dallas,Texas region. Jefferson, his eyesight deteriorating since early childhood, traveled through towns in Texas, singing his blues tunes with the likes of Leadbelly. His style contrasted from the Mississippi guitarists by not relying on the slides, open tuning and basic repetitive harmonies.2
In 1925, Lemon moved to Chicago and started recording. He was one of the first popular blues recording artists and one of the most influential black American folk blues singer of his day, combining blues with ragtime and utilizing harmonic sequences that simulated vocal arrangements. Lemon relied on the use of bent notes on the guitar. While he rarely used a slide, he did so successfully on a recording entitled Jack O'Diamond Blues.
Many of Lemon's compositions were frequently autobiographical. Other selections demonstrated a concern for the fate of prison inmates. Some noteworthy songs from Blind Lemon Jefferson includes: Long Lonesome Blues (1926), Shuckin' Sugar Blues (1926), Jack O'Diamond Blues (1926), Black Snake Moan (1927), Match Box Blues (1927), Pneumonia Blues (1929), Hamgman's Blues (1928), Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues (1928).
Robert Johnson
(1911-1938)
A number of books have been written about American blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson. Born in Mississippi in 1911, Robert Johnson established a unique style of guitar playing based on infectious rhythms, boogie riffs and slide technique. One of his songs "Sweet Home Chicago" has been recorded by various artists and Eric Clapton even dedicated a two entire CDs to him entitled "Sessions for Robert J" and "Me and Mr. Johnson".
After growing up and working on plantations and labor camps throughout his early years, Robert Johnson married at the age of 18. He lost his wife in 1930 due to a complicated child birth. While living in Arkansas. Robert Johnson later became a professional traveling musician in the 1930s and lived a life of a hobo, while earning a living with his music. Sadly, Johnson died at the early age of 27 while producing only 29 songs.
His worked was influenced by the recordings of Lonni Johnson, Son House, the sounds of Skip James, and Hambone Willie Newbern. Johnson made a number of influential recordings in Texas that reflected the Mississippi blues of the mid-1930s. Such recordings, it could be argued, link Mississippi Delta blues to modern Chicago blues.
Johnson's guitar technique combined dramatic rhythms with special effects produced by a bottleneck slide. He was noted for using a walking bass rhythm. His recording influenced the post war generation of blues players, including various British guitarists of the 1960s, such as Eric Clapton and John Mayall.
Some of Robert Johnson's greatest recordings included: 2·20 Blues (1936), If I had possession over Judgment Day (1936), Hell Hound on my Trail (1937). Kind Hearted Woman (1936), I believe I’ll dust my broom (1936), Ramblin’ on my Mind (1936). He also played popular songs, such as My Blue Heaven.
T-Bone Walker
(1910-1975)
Born Aaron Thibeaux Walker in Linden, Texas on May 28, 1910, was an active performer all his life. He learned acoustic blues from the great Blind Lemon Jefferson, yet, he would be one of the first to create an electric urban blues sound. He even played banjo with Cab Callaway's band in 1930.
By the mid 1930s, Walker headed to Los Angeles and established himself as a electric guitar blues showman. He played his guitar behind his head and did splits while he performed. Performers like Chuck Berry, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn and even Elvis Presley would later model themselves to some degree after T-Bone Walker.
While there are many, one of Walker's best recordings is "Call it Stormy Monday",
Muddy Waters
(1915-1983)
American blues singer and guitarist. He started playing the guitar at the age of 17. Although he listened with great interest to the recording of Robert Johnson, one of Waters greatest influence was his friend Son House. In 1941–42 he was recorded in Mississippi by representatives of the Library of Congress, who desired to preserve the Delta Blues cultural heritage.
In 1943 he moved to Chicago, and began his commercial recording career in 1947 . The following year he signed to the Aristocrat label which later changed its name to Chess Records. It was also around this time that he began to play the electric guitar, utilizing a vibrant slide technique.
In the 1960s Muddy Waters toured extensively in the USA and Europe. Similar to Robert Johnson, Muddy made an impact on many white musicians, including John Mayall and the Rolling Stones in Great Britain. A car accident in 1970 curtailed his ability to play guitar while standing. Many people not only consider Muddy Waters the father of Chicago Blues and also one of the most important postwar blues singers..
Songs of Interest by Muddy Watters include: I be’s troubled (1941), Country Blues (1941) Walkin’ Blues (1950), Louisiana Blues (1950), I’m your Hoochie Coochie Man (1953), Mannish Boy (1955), Got my Mojo Working (1956), and Tiger in your Tank (1960)
Riley B. King
(1925 - )
An American blues singer and guitarist who was raised on a black tenant farm in Indianola, Mississippi, Riley King's resume speaks volumes of how he has influenced a style of music performed by many well-known artists. Riley B. King was born on September 25, 1925 to two sharecroppers, Albert and Nora Ella King. His place of birth was the small town of Berclair, Mississippi.4
After leaving the plantation and traveling to Memphis, he first took the name Blues Boy,while working as a blues singer, guitarist and disc jockey for the WDIA radio station. One of his first paid studio works included writing commercial jingles for a product called pepticon.
As a self-taught blues guitar player, BB King's story is truly inspiring and to attempt to summarize it in one short article would be an exercise in futility. Riley King actually started as a guitar player of gospel music. In the early 1960s, BB King's most notable breakthrough came when many British rock musicians, such as John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger adopted his style and techniques. Since then his performances attract an international and multi-racial following and reputation. BB King has performed with countless musicians and bands and has even been honored by presidents, kings and queens, as well as the Pope.
By watching interviews of BB King or by reading about his story, you would learn about the various artists who influenced him. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Charlie Christian, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker, and Muddy Waters are some of the great early blues and jazz artists who had a profound impact on the BB King. His guitar playing, though, is distinctive, emphasizing his legendary bends and vibratos that so many other blues guitarists have attempted to mimic. BB King is at his best when he performs blues in a tradition of combining speech and song.
BB King's early recordings reveal a distinctive mixture of jazz, swing, gospel and rhythm-and-blues styles which he synthesized without a trace of stylistic inconsistency or incongruity. While, his recording of Three O’Clock Blues brought him some success in 1952, one of his greatest hits is the "Thrill is Gone", which put blues on the popular music charts. There are too many good recordings to list in one article, yet "Live at the Cook County Jail (1970, ABC)" is arguably one of the greatest blues albums of all times.
The many grammy's that BB King has won, proves that he has driven blues to a certain level of respectability never achieved before the mid to late 1960s. Yet, despite the many decades in which he has enjoyed considerable commercial success, BB King has emphasized in a recent concert that the new blues artists must work hard to earn the respect of the commercial music industry.
To Head Back Home
& Take Another Tour
Click The Pick
References
1. Guitar - Music, History, Players, Richard Chapman, p 46.
2.Ibid, p 47
1a "Patton, Charlie - King Of The Delta Blues: The Music Of Charlie Patton." In Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed., edited by Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/84119 (accessed March 8, 2009).
. "Jefferson, Blind Lemon." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/14225 (accessed March 8, 2009).
. "Johnson, Robert (iii)." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/14416 (accessed March 8, 2009).
. "King, B.B." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/15016 (accessed March 8, 2009).
3. The BB King Treasures, Photos, Momentos & Music From BB King's Collection, by BB King and Dick Waterman, p 10.
