Favorite Guitar Licks in Pre War Blues Forum

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Favorite Guitar Licks

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toby walker

Favorite Guitar Licks

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Posts: 174

Feb 2 09 12:58 PM

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I'm a big fan of collecting neat and interesting guitar licks from just about anywhere... other players, records, books, DVD's ... you name it. If there's a good one out there I want to learn it and stick it somewhere in my own playing.

So I figured there must be a few other folks here that must do the same thing.

Here's where we get to have a little fun. Let's see if we can describe some of the spots in particular songs that have licks that just 'sing' to us. I think it would be an interesting way of perhaps picking up a few things we may have never heard before.

I'll start it off: How about the opening phrase that Blind Lemon Jefferson uses in Matchbox Blues? he's playing an A chord way up on the 9th fret.. then changes it to an Am chord and goes back to the A. I think it's beautiful little lick.

Toby Walker

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kinghendrix

#1

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Deepest Blue

Posts: 6385

Feb 2 09 6:15 PM

Great idea !!!

Let's contribute with a humble "lick I like" (good title at least). Its in "That's All right"'s introduction in Arhur Crudup original. I don't know if it is the right way to play the D chord but i feel good with string 1, fret 5 (change to 8 and back), string 2 and 3, fret 7 and string 4 open.

Jean-Claude
Lyon (France)

Gallery Blues Attic
My facebook page

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galcsababoogie

#2

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Posts: 36

Feb 3 09 10:36 AM

How about Barbecue Bob's famous opening (and very often closing) lick in open G? Certainly his elder brother Laughing Charley Lincoln also used it.
E.g. see "Jealous Haerted Blues" by Laughing Charley Lincoln
"Chocolate To The Bone" by Barbecue Bob.

Another favourite one. See Lonnie Johnson's "Mean Old Bedbug Blues". There is a lick (and its variations) at the end of the A lines and another beautiful one after the B, the third ones. The one for the A lines is based on D major but using the notes of an A major, the one after the third lines goes toward the dominant seventh cord thru B and B flat sevenths. (You can play them as dim chords as well, both sound nice.) Robert Johnson used a simplified version of these licks in his "Malted Milk" and "Drunken Hearted Man". Lonnie must have liked these guitar turns since he used them in several other songs of him around this time.

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toby walker

#3

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Posts: 174

Feb 3 09 1:49 PM

I've always loved the use of diminished chords in the blues as well. It certainly is likely that Robert Johnson may have copped the idea from Lonnie, as Lonnie's records were very popular at the time.

One of my favorite ways of using a diminished chord in blues would be right after you play the 4 chord... leading back to the 1 chord. For example, when you're playing a D7 in the key of A you can add the D# dim7 just before you go back to the A chord. In a 12 bar blues in 4/4 time it would look like this:

A7/A7/A7/7A/D7/D7- D#dim7/ A7/A7/E7/D7-D#dim7/A7/E7[B]

Lonnie used that a lot.

For your information... I'll be putting an example of that up on my YouTube site shortly. There's a few other lessons up there now.
http://www.youtube.com/user/tobywalker123

Best,

Toby

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Petway

#4

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Deepest Blue

Posts: 1146

Feb 3 09 1:58 PM

One of my favorites is Tommy Johnson's intro to Lonesome Home Blues, not the 1928 version but the very scratchy one, 1929 take which can be heard on Yazoo L 1007 or - with an unrequested sound-on-sound effect, anyone knows what happened? - Document, Roots or other releases.

It's mainly done on the second string, always alterning with the open 1st; he bends the B string at the 5th fret a whole semitone up to reach G, then gradually releases it : G again, not-quite-G (that is, something between G and F#), then actually F# before he ends the lick, presumably on 3dr string-6th fret followed by B and E on the basses (my guess is B on the 6th at the 5th fret, more convenient for left hand, but not sure).
The same lick is repeated once, but ends with B and E on the trebles, and the last repetition starts with two bends from not-quite-G up to G - then, same pattern again before he falls back to the more usual E chord at the 7th fret, and starts singing.

I don't know if there is anything understandable in my attempt to describe it (lucky some folks invented scores ans tablatures!

) but to me, this particular intro provides exactly the same feeling as Johnson's voice itself, something which seems to come out of nowhere and gradually gain strength and amplitude.

Patrice - Puiseaux (France)

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galcsababoogie

#5

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Posts: 36

Feb 3 09 2:31 PM

About dim7 added after the subdominant.
If you're in the key of A you can replace it with a Fmaj7 (F7+) chord like in this progression (only the chords after each other):

A D7(9) Fmaj7

5 0 0
2 1 1
2 2 2
2 0 0
0 x x
x 2 1

Or, how about this turnaround?

D7 dim7

5 (5)
2 3
5 2
4 3
0 0
x x

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7846810

#6

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Deepest Blue

Posts: 375

Feb 3 09 3:07 PM

I've always liked licks played around the E chord, where a C# is hammered onto the B string and the G# on the G string is repeatedly pulled off (think Mamlish Blues by Ed Bell or Slidin' Delta by Tommy Johnson).

I also love the lick right at the end of 34 Blues by Charley Patton (at about 2:49), played in C (key of C#).

Also worth mention is Pile Driver blues by Kansas Joe McCoy, which has a great recurring little lick played up at the seventh fret on the high E and B strings.

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toby walker

#7

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Posts: 174

Feb 4 09 3:16 AM

QUOTE (Ol' Scratch @ February 03, 2009 03:07 pm)

I've always liked licks played around the E chord, where a C# is hammered onto the B string and the G# on the G string is repeatedly pulled off (think Mamlish Blues by Ed Bell or Slidin' Delta by Tommy Johnson).

I also love the lick right at the end of 34 Blues by Charley Patton (at about 2:49), played in C (key of C#).

Also worth mention is Pile Driver blues by Kansas Joe McCoy, which has a great recurring little lick played up at the seventh fret on the high E and B strings.

Speaking of those licks against an E chord... listen to Bo Carter play 'Go Back Old Devil.' It's filled with them.

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MaskedMarvel

#8

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Deepest Blue

Posts: 6919

Feb 5 09 11:46 AM

Anyone gets what Bo Carter does on first verses of "Doubled In A Knot". Like when he sing "Now listen here baby, this is coming to a test"

All the above written is in my opinion unless it is someone else's opinion, or a fact.

Location: Zur Moshe, Israel

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Petway

#9

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Deepest Blue

Posts: 1146

Feb 5 09 12:44 PM

QUOTE (MaskedMarvel @ February 05, 2009 11:46 am)

Anyone gets what Bo Carter does on first verses of "Doubled In A Knot". Like when he sing "Now listen here baby, this is coming to a test"

If you agree that the piece is played in open G, I think he (inadvertantly?) frets the 5th string at the 5th fret, getting ready for the bass lick which introduces the IV chord, not the expected D, D#, E but C, D, E.

Patrice - Puiseaux (France)

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killerkarl

#10

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Posts: 143

Feb 6 09 1:24 PM

I love the B7th walk down in pony blues, m+o blues and bye bye blues. I seem to use it everytime I play in E these days.

They call me the killer, I never hurt no one
Yeah boy, they callin me the killer, I never hurt anyone,
But when you leave here this mornin', you find your lady gone!

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toby walker

#11

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Posts: 174

Feb 14 09 3:13 AM

I've always been a big fan of Lonnie Johnson. I've stolen tons of things from him. It was Lonnie that turned me on to the idea of using the DGDGBE tuning.

By the way, here's something that can be a lot of fun with that tuning.
If you do an alternating bass pattern on the 6th and 4th strings you can, as Lonnie did, play some solos in the key of D. But... and this is a kick... in mid song switch things around a bit by alternating between the 5th and 4 strings - G and D respectively - and now you're in the key of G. By experimenting with this you can switch keys in mid song and get a heck of a nice effect.

Also, by using those open strings as your bass you can play little triads of D and G chords up and down the neck on the remaining upper 4 strings. I've used this to completely rework the Gary Davis song 'Let Us Get Together.' It really opened things up in a huge way.

By the way... I have the tab to that, as well as an mp3 available if anyone is interested. Just send me an email and I'll shoot them off to you.

Best,

Toby Walker