Blues Rock Guitar history

[Mr. Perfect]

Some one needs to hear my story. This might not be a real thread, we'll see.

My guitar development started with some pop bands of a certain era, but at a certain point the material I was learning was not challenging enough, and not teaching me enough about guitar.

Things got serious when I delved into Led Zeppelin and Hendrix. Prior, I did not care for them much musically, was not my thing, sex/drug psychedelic music. I liked the Beach Boys as a lad.

But when I realized that guitar quality was to be found in LZ and Hendrix I delved deeply. No internet back then, and tablature books were laughable. Anyone's guess what they were playing.

But I couldn't figure it out. Where did it come from. They all said, the blues, and Robert Johnson. So I bought the double CD set, and it sounded nothing like Jimmy or Jimi. The gap was enormous. But Clapton, Beck, Page, Hendrix, always were going on about it. But it was worlds apart.

I then heard about Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters. Blind Willie. Cool I guess, but no raging guitar solos.

I had this going.

Robert Johnson =>

Blind Willie =>

Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon =>

Jimmy and Jimi?

Not happening. Someone skipped a step.

[Mr. Perfect]

Then I remembered Chuck Berry.

A little better. Lets add him in.

Robert Johnson =>

Blind Willie =>

Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon =>

Chuck Berry =>

Jimmy and Jimi, Eric and Jeff.

Ok. So, Chuck Berry invented the guitar riff as we think of it today. But NOT the guitar SOLO. The holy solo. Whole Lotta Love, Voodoo Chile slight return. That did NOT come from Chuck Berry. It may as well have come from aliens. What Clapton Beck Page and Hendrix did was packaged fully formed and fully developed, and they DID NOT get it from Chuck Berry. Where did they get it?

The complex bends, pentatonic boxes, rapid fire pre shred, it came from the sky, because Chuck Berry was NOT DOING IT. Something is missing.

Then one day...

[Mr. Perfect]

It occured to me that I had never gone to school on Chuck Berry. What did he come from, who was he copying, what was he listening to. I had a duh moment, like, why did you not do this sooner.

And boy did I find what I was looking for.

T Bone Walker. The missing link. The first rock & roll soloist. He took jazz leads and voicings and put them in the blues. And BOOM

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Then further research, Beck Page Hendrix and Clapton all knew about him. They took T Bone and just took the next step. Now you can draw a straight line from Robert Johnson to Jimi Hendrix. No missing pieces. And incremental progression with no steps missing.

Listen as T Bone uses a guitar lead as an introductory musical phrase for the composition, and uses single note leads as fills accompanying the lead vocal. This is the complete template that the guitar gods of the British Invasion built on, to the last detail. Blues boxes and bends and format, all in a package. All Page and crew did was play it louder and faster.

[Mr. Perfect]

I found an obscure Hendrix interview where a girlfriend said he was heavy into Elmore James in his formative years on the guitar circuit. Elmore was doing the same thing at the same time.

Lead guitar phrases as the focus of the composition, full pentatonics and bends. The complete package.

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[Mr. Perfect]

Now we can draw a straight line from Johnson to Page.

Robert Johnson =>

Blind Willie =>

Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon =>

T Bone Walker, Elmore James =>

Chuck Berry =>

Jimmy and Jimi, Eric and Jeff.

There it is, every single step, no shortcuts.

[Mr. Perfect]

Why does this matter? When looking into arts and entertainment I feel people are looking on a spectrum, from titillation to authenticity. This we are talking about is authenticity.

If you throw a beginning musician straight into Hendrix, it's not authentic. Even thought it is fairly simple music, blues => rock was built up by layers. If you skip the layers or steps, you miss what is authentic about it.

Robert Johnson without knowing it took slave gospel music of 3 chords and 12 bars, slowed it down and sang about his unfaithful wimmin and creditors, and harsh working conditions which was apparently all real.

A small group of people took that vibe and added to it, adding a full band with primitive instrumentals voicings and phrases to match. Then Muddy and Willie introduced songwriting to the format.

Guitar being the poor man's piano (at the time simply a cheap and portable chording instrument), T Bone and Elmore began borrowing jazz leads and putting into the pentatonic/12 bar range.

Then Hendrix et al took this basic format and just went faster and louder, and infused it with other genres to create what they created. And thus the history is written.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

This should be in the love'em/hate'em thread, dude. Your input there would be very informative, as you clearly have spent a lot of time with the guitar and a deep appreciation for the blues and blues(-based) rock.

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No short cuts if you rule out the Jazz guys completely- like Charlie Christian, who made it popular.

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Chuck Berry was a smart guy well versed in both classical and jazz.

Classical guitar has a long tradition of "solo'ing". I wonder how much an influence the war period had on it.

How did Spanish influence get to Chicago to influence Chicago Blues/Jazz?

[Mr. Perfect]

Why does this matter?

Authenticity is everything. If I was going to teach a new guitarist these days I would start with 3 primitive Johnson song, open tuning with 3 chords.

Then 3 from Willie and Muddy.

I would take some basic leads from T Bone and Elmore, made sure they bent them properly, and learn them note for note.

Then you could take on the other guys.

No steps missed. Built on a solid foundation.

[Mr. Perfect]

Elmore and T Bone were copping Charlie big time. Just he wasn't a rock guy. No disrespect at all.

[Mr. Perfect]

This though also takes some explaining. I can't see Imagine Dragons ever doing this.

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[noddy]

.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Why does this matter?

Authenticity is everything. If I was going to teach a new guitarist these days I would start with 3 primitive Johnson song, open tuning with 3 chords.

Then 3 from Willie and Muddy.

I would take some basic leads from T Bone and Elmore, made sure they bent them properly, and learn them note for note.

Then you could take on the other guys.

No steps missed. Built on a solid foundation.

I agree with the process here. Building it up.

I wouldn't start it chronologically, though. They first need to develop rhythm and ingraining standard tuning into them. It's easier to start with Chuck Berry- let them get a sense of the beat- then dig into the blues.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

What did you start on Mr.P?

The first song I learned- and I mean just sat down and learned after endlessly practing chords and scales-

was the Venture's Walk Don't Run and quickly followed that up with a guitar only rendition of the Beach Boys California Girls.

[Mr. Perfect]

Good question. I don't remember.

I think Journey and U2 were early in there. Joshua Tree changed my life. Being a good church boy I found rock music to be icky. Mullets, dirty jeans, groupies, drugs and so forth was just grubby to me at that time. Still is.

But Joshua Tree came out, and just added a whole new dimension to guitar music. Clean cut Irish "Christian" band without much distortion or machismo singing in an uplifting manner, huge anthems played with advanced sonics and it really caught my ear.

I played trombone in the school band, always first chair, so I had a good musical background and a lot of confidence as a musician, but had never been serious about the guitar. Particularly because of Eddie Van Halen, I heard that and just said I have no idea where you start.

But the U2 guitar parts are so simple and ultimately a dead end. Curiosity drove me at that point into Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and I became hooked and went down the rabbit hole.

[Mr. Perfect]

So I'm big into authenticity. My ear is highly attuned. When something sounds real I snap it up and take it apart down to the bolts. Then you hear John Mayer and barf.

But even people I don't care for, sometimes they play the real deal.

Of note are the Rolling Stones. On some level, somehow, they knew what they were doing, and how it was supposed to be done. Now the simply answer is always they came from a blues milieu, but that doesn't explain why some were better than others.

From my first guitar plinkings I always wondered, how are you supposed to play this thing, properly. What is a proper guitar arrangement? What is doing it right look like. You can play 100 guitar parts and they may work in a song, but often the magical quality eludes them. It's not even about how hard or easy they are. Just some ephemeral quality.

Like this.

This is not blues rock or jazz, but it's authentic. It's a real guitar piece. I wish I knew of about 20 of these, but I don't. I wish I knew what the guy who wrote this knew, and I would like to know where he learned it. Maybe it just all goes back to classical and spanish. Maybe you have to start there.

The first song he plays at 4:05.

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[Mr. Perfect]

With that Richards song, it's almost as if that was the first guitar lesson you ever received you could not help but become an epic and historic guitar player. Poor saps spending years learning chord and scale charts, whereas his grandpa just hand taught him a piece that has every ingredient for guitar music in it. You could start with that piece, keep working on it, and eventually write every song ever written.

It's boggling.

[Mr. Perfect]

For guitar science nerds this is an important but unrelated video I need to put somewhere.

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The frame rate on this camera captures an interesting phenomena. Observable, unlike big bang abiotic genesis or evolution, you can clearly see the overtones on the guitar string. The string doesn't oscillate like a bow, rather its like grabbing the end of a hose and whipping it back and forth.

There is one overriding frequency creating the pitch you perceive and then more "overtones" produced by a complex mix of oscillations. Effectively it turns a single note into a chord.

Most stringed instruments do this, creating complex wave forms. Only a pure sine wave has no overtones, and sound like a flute, or like this.

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Very boring. More complex wave form instruments tend to me more popular.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Not to pick on Mr.Richards, but he stole those early songs from mostly Brian Jones and the latter records, was mostly Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor.

I don't know if you read his autobiography, but while a capable read; I actually developed some sympathy for Mick Jagger- of all people! (but only a little)- whose work ethic is top-tier.

edit: and I say not to pick on him, because the whole business can be cut-throat and we are not dealing with nice people here.

But I'm almost 100% sure half the stories Keith Richards tells about "songwriting" and guitar playing are cock&bull. The Richards/Jagger duo was notorious for jealously guarding the credits and their images.

And his talent as a songwriter and rhythm guitarist mysteriously deteriorates & disappears well before his contemporaries, as the two others leave the Rolling Stones and he has that falling out with his songwriting partner- which to my understanding has never been fully repaired to this day.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

For guitar science nerds this is an important but unrelated video I need to put somewhere.

8B6jOUzBKYc

The frame rate on this camera captures an interesting phenomena. Observable, unlike big bang abiotic genesis or evolution, you can clearly see the overtones on the guitar string. The string doesn't oscillate like a bow, rather its like grabbing the end of a hose and whipping it back and forth.

There is one overriding frequency creating the pitch you perceive and then more "overtones" produced by a complex mix of oscillations. Effectively it turns a single note into a chord.

Most stringed instruments do this, creating complex wave forms. Only a pure sine wave has no overtones, and sound like a flute, or like this.

dZ5G13MEMgc

Very boring. More complex wave form instruments tend to me more popular.

It's a great way of overcoming equal temperament- especially with electric guitars and all sorts of pedals.

I think that's an avenue not often explored because it's subtle and everyone focuses on the blues-based panache of leaning into the ambiguity left in equal temperament, in the most obvious.

Someone has probably has a lot to say about this but I haven't come across it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Mr.P, what do you think of Mike Bloomfield?

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[NapLajoieonSteroids]

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Now, Jimi Hendrix was the real deal- or at the very end of the road of people who could be 'real deals' so easily. But in it, is something adulterated and something about it portents the collapse to come.

But for all the talk of his guitar prowess; what great ears.

The guy was an A+++ listener. And an A+ studio guitarist.

[Typhoon]

Sister Rosetta Tharpe's contribution to the genre via the gospel electric guitar deserves a mention:

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[Mr. Perfect]

Oh man I love that stuff. You can hear a LOT of Chuck Berry in there (in that he copied her). To Napsters point, they were all ripping each other off back then and now, that is not the issue, the issue becomes if you were TAPPED IN.

Not to get into a thing, but I'm hugely picky when it comes to this stuff. I just have a certain taste, and if you don't hit it right it's not happening for me.

For example I really can't stand Joe Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Sheppard, John Mayer, or I'm really not that into Stevie Ray Vaughn, yes go ahead and shoot me. You can be as technically proficient as possible, that's not what I'm going for.

[Mr. Perfect]

These are my 2 favorite blues jams of all time.

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[Mr. Perfect]

Hoochie Coochie Man, at the end of the video. Can't find a full version.

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