In 2020 I decided that I would learn Blues guitar for real. Not just the main tropes and most famous songs, but how to improvise the Blues confidently and how to write my own Blues originals.
I chose a few influential Blues Guitarists from the 60s, and learnt their songs and their style for a couple weeks. Then I wrote my own songs inspired by them, but in my own style and combined with modern influences.
Here are the songs I've recorded so far!
Listen to the playlist on Soundcloud 🎧This was the first I made after learning the 12 Bar Blues and blues improvisation. I spent some time learning B.B. King licks he used to play, and the "BB King Box". This is a scale he used that combined Major and Minor sounds that are key to his style.
Building on top of this major/minor dichotomy, I decided to structure the song around this: the first half of the song is in a Minor key (G), and second half is in its relative Major (Bb). This is interesting because you can create different vibes and sounds, while using technically the same notes. I emphasised this by starting each section with the same riff (with some slight changes), where it first sounds melancholic and wistful, but once in the Major key it sounds hopeful and upbeat.
Since this was the first blues song I made myself, it's basically just a really long solo; a string of licks played against a backing track I made. Regardless, I think it's pretty chill to listen to and it was a great learning experience.
This song was inspired by another King - Albert King. In particular, I was specifically studying his most iconic song “Born Under A Bad Sign”. I wanted to have an actual song structure and not just a really long solo like the previous experiment.
I started by learning how to play the song, and then by analysing it. I wrote out the structure: basically a classic 12 Bar Blues in the format of Verse -> Chorus -> Turnaround. Then I filled in each bar where Albert King played a guitar lick, and each part where he sang a lyric (there’s very little overlap). This was because I was obviously not going to sing, but a song can start to feel uneventful and reptitve without a singer. So I decided that a second guitar would play the role of the singer!
I made a similar structure for my own song, however I added break-ups to the pattern by introducing two solos and an outro. I used my Stratocaster for playing the clean lead guitar parts, and my Epiphone Casino with some distortion to fill the role of singer. I also created a groovy rhythm guitar part inspired by Born Under A Bad Sign that plays throughout the song, for a grand total of three guitars concurrently playing throughout this song!
I really like how this idea turned out and I think this sounds like a “real” song you could hear on an old record.
The third King - Freddie King - was the muse for this song. He’s not as famous as the other two, but was also very influential and has his own distinct style. “Hideaway”, his most popular song, was what I studied and what inspired me to create this track. Fun fact, this song’s name is a pun on a different tune of his, “San-Ho-Zay”.
Freddie style’s, exemplified perfectly by Hideaway, is characterised by playing both the lead guitar riffs and the rhythm parts himself, alternatingly. His fills are faster and more intense, almost Surfy at times. Additionally, he structures his songs clearly into distinct parts with their own vibe and groove. This is likely because, unlike the previous Kings, Freddie’s songs were commonly instrumental.
All this combined meant that Freddie King was a perfect inspiration for me. I started by trying to come up with a similar similar main riff: a fast melody making use of fast slides and the top two strings, and gradually involving the lower strings as the measures progress. Then, between each melodic run, I play a bar of shuffle rhythm blues in the current chord, never playing the same rhythm twice in a row.
In contrast to the previous songs, which were in G/Bb and A, I wrote this one in E, like Hideaway, so that I could practice playing at the start of the guitar neck and also to make use of the open strings. However, I also wanted to practing playing all around the guitar neck, so I leap up and down across the various sections of my song. There’s a middle section here in 7/4 and 7/8, which isn’t blusey at all, and was inspired by King Gizzard’s “Head On/Pill”. I love this song, and it was running through my fingertips as I had been learning it at the same time as I wrote this. It helps to break up the flow and throw of expectations, while still fitting in perfectly and making the song more unique.
It took a while to come up with my own original riff in this style, but once I had it, everything else just came together. I adore this style of playing, and I love the minimalism and confidence of being able to play an entire song with groove and melody all by yourself with no need for a backing track or multiple recordings. Freddie King has definitely been the most influential King on me.
This track breaks the King combo, yet is a perfect evolution of the previous song. Doublestop Widowmaker is a Fingerstyle E Blues inspired by the playing of Hubert Sumlin. Like Freddie King, he combines rhythm and lead playing, however he plays fingerstyle, using the thumb to play the bass strings and the index + ring finger to play the lead licks.
I got this idea after coming across Smokestack Lightnin’, and deciding to challenge myself to finally learning how to play fingerstyle. The main riff of my song was inspired by this, as the main concepts when writing it were a constant thumping bass line on the E string, and a lead riff heavily featuring double stops and slides/bends. For the turnaround I was inspired by another song with Hubert Sumlin: Killing Floor. I really loved playing that chord groove, so I used it on my song too with slightly different chords, to break up the monotonous pattern.
Hubert mostly repeats the same riffs throughout a song, but as usual since I’m doing instrumentals and l want to take it a step further, I added a section in Phrygian towards the middle of the track, that veers into rock territory (fun fact, the Phrygian riff was the first thing I came up with, but it didn’t fit the vibe for the main riff, so I saved it for later). This then leads into a solo type rock-out break (very) inspired by Thee Oh Sees, which I also playing a lot of at the time. The bass only interlude between sections were also inspired by Oh Sees with my own emblishments.
The finale of the song turns into B major walk up around the circle of fifths. I was playing around and came up with that, thought it sounded like a very chill and contrasting idea, so I decided to make that the ending. Maybe it’s also some kind of lead-in to a future song…
Overall, this was definitely the hardest song to write and to perform because I was learning fingerstyle for the first time. Took a while to master my own song and be able to play it at this fast tempo, but it was extremely fun and rewarding! I think it’s the best one on this compilation, but I always think my latest song is the best.