Some more rambling on about playing blues guitar…

But first…
Dulltown, UK: Today’s fish names are: the Angelfish, the Bleak, the Crevice Kelpfish, the Amur Pike, the Coloured Carpetshark, the Grunt, and the Kissing Gourami.
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I really must stop doing these pieces! They are all about me!…

Still, when you are old, and you blather on like this, you might, just by chance, pass a bit of information on to some young person (Some women seem to be taking up blues guitar! Which must be a good thing!) thinking about playing, or possibly singing, some blues music.

Blues music, as it used to be, is more or less dead now – well all the great players and singers are dead now, so it must be.
All the lifestyles and politics which was the backdrop to blues have gone… well, anyway, things have changed a lot since then, so you can’t expect blues to survive in this odd environment we have now – I suppose it’s more like a museum piece, a historical item.
So, still, it is good to play the old records, and to try to play the tunes on our guitars, and maybe hum some ancient words, a bit, over the top of it.
You might summon a little bit of the magic, and surprise people, and yourself. Blues is a great source of musical power. You play a short riff, and it, immediately, makes you shiver – well sometimes it does! Try the link at the end of this piece! It makes me shiver.

As I ranted on, in the last one of these things, my advice was, and is – don’t just copy stuff, songs, riffs, note-for-note, there is no point in doing that! Play and sing the song, but make it yours! What’s the point of trying sound exactly like some old 78 rpm record, or trying to be Howlin’ Wolf – you’d lust sound silly!
But, you can still make the music yours. Keep the important riffs and the tune, so that people can recognise the thing, but bring something new to it, and do enjoy yourself doing it.

When, ages ago, I played in a blues band, which I did enjoy, and a guitar solo was needed between the verses, I usually didn’t know in advance what I was going to play in it. I then just dived in and played stuff which popped up in the mood of the thing, and to respond to, and respect, what the other members of the band were doing.
Imagine being in a band where every guitar bit, and solo, had to be every note perfect, just like on the original record?
Oh, that sounds horrible! I’d hate be in that band!
My advice to anyone who wants to get into blues, is, don’t try to recreate some dusty old record – make that song yours!…
Here, grab your guitar, and sing, and just play along with this one!
Click here.