The Blues has been called The Devil’s Music. It can be played in many different ways. Each brings a different dimension to this timeless musical form. In this lesson we travel the roads and byways of the South in search of various approaches to translate this musical form to the strings and frets of your guitar. From Atlanta to the Mississippi Delta, from New Orleans to Texas, this lesson presents diverse and exciting fingerstyle blues techniques and styles.

We explore the steady alternating bass of Mississippi John Hurt’s Ain’t Nobody But You Babe to the rough and tumble playing of Son House’s Banty Rooster in an Open G tun­ing. Barbecue Bob’s melodic Mississippi Heavy Water Blues with it’s repeating bass line motif is rearranged to a partial Open G tuning (D G D G B E) and combines the Atlanta blues sound with that from North Carolina. We get a taste of New Orleans and a more sophisticated approach for the playing of the Ray Charles hit Let’s Go Get Stoned. We end our journey with Goin’ Down Slow. A steady bass played blues in A with melodic lead lines but played in dropped D tuning, a technique taught to me by Mance Lipscomb.

Each tune is taught phrase by phrase and played slowly on a split-screen. A detailed tab/ music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. The Bonus Audio section includes source recordings. DVD is region 0, playable worldwide.

DVD is region 0, playable worldwide

Running Time 109 minutes

Mississippi Heavy Water Blues

Banty Rooster

Ain’t Nobody But You Babe

Let’s Go Get Stoned

Goin’ Down Slow