Exploring 8-Bar Blues covers everything a learning guitarist will need to get into the infectious 8-bar blues form. It will inspire novices as well as more advanced fingerstyle blues players. Mary Flower brings her expertise and musicianship to seven great fingerstyle arrangements: How Long Blues • Blood Red River • Some Old Lonesome Day • Key to the Highway • Crow Jane • Trouble in Mind • Searching the Desert for the Blues. 60 MIN. • LEVEL 3 • INCLUDES MUSIC + TAB .PDF

Books have been written about Bix Beiderbecke, movies have been made. His incandescent talent, meteoric rise and tragic death at 28: this is the stuff of myth and legend. We are fortunate that we have quite a few incomparable recordings. Although it is said that they only capture a shadow of Bix’s sound, you can hear right away what the fuss was all about. As Ernie Hawkins attempted to do with some Louis Armstrong songs in an earlier DVD set, (Louis and Bix, it is said, had opportunities to play together, and greatly admired each other), here he is playing and teaching some favorite Bix songs on guitar. Once again, the extraordinary fingerpicking style developed by Rev Gary Davis shines through, making this approach to the jazz of the 1920‘s possible. These songs may be challenging, but they are fun and rewarding to learn and play. Hopefully, learning this style via these songs will open the student to new possibilities. This lesson is over 2 hours. The arrangements are for the intermediate to advance players. They are multi-section compositions with lots of fingerpicking challenges. But all your hard work will be very worthwhile as these tunes are some of the greatest in the early jazz repertoire. Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD.

One of the most musically inventive guitarists has devised a compelling and powerful way to use DADGAD tuning for playing a variety of fingerstyle blues instrumentals, from swampy Delta to the Piedmont, Big Bill to Doc Watson. This lesson will open up exciting new possibilities and musical explorations for guitarists at all levels. LEVEL 3 • 90 MIN.

Stefan Grossman's Complete Country Blues Guitar Book contains over 50 fingerpicking guitar solos in notation and tablature in country blues, Delta blues, ragtime blues, Texas blues and bottleneck styles. An extremely comprehensive blues solo collection. 2 CDs included.

The blues has always been spiced with suggestive metaphors. This collection of bawdy blues songs celebrates the off-colour blues repertoire: Bessie Smith is wild about her kitchen man's turnip tops, but Bo Carter's pencil won't write no more! There's lots of variety, with songs from the 1930s, 40s and 50s; some are simple three-chord blues tunes and others have beautiful, ragtimey chord changes. Fred shows you how to play accompaniment and solos for all the songs. The evocative titles include Ain't Got Nobody to Grind My Coffee (Clara Smith), She's Your Cook But She Burns My Bread Sometimes and My Pencil Won't Write No More (Bo Carter), Kitchen Man (Bessie Smith), Big Ten Inch (Bull Moose Jackson), You Can't Tell the Difference After Dark (Alberta Hunter) and the holiday perennial Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby (Amos Milburn). Fred shows you how to accompany yourself singing the songs, and how to fingerpick an instrumental version of each one. His easy-going instructional style, his tips on playing the arrangements, and his slowed-down, split-screen performances of each tune make learning easy. All the arrangements are written out in tab and music as well... both the backup and solos 91 minutes • Level 2 • Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

The 2,000 licks in this book are organized into 36 chapters. These chapters explore the different pitches, rhythms, techniques, and methods of phrasing found in blues and blues-influenced guitar solos and fills. Use these licks to deliver heavy, yet ear-catching riffs. These can be played along with the 43 backing tracks included on the 3 CDs that come with this book. They are all written in the key of a C blues, while the backing tracks are played in the keys of E, A, D, G, C, F, and Bb. A handy table is included that shows how to transpose up or down from C to other blues keys. The backing tracks (performed by a live band in a studio) are all in the 12-bar blues form, but the licks do not necessarily have to be played over specific chords in the progression.

"It is difficult to describe the transformation that took place as this smiling, friendly man hunched over his guitar and launched himself, bodily it seemed, into his music. The blues possessed him like a 'lowdown shaking chill' and the spellbound audience saw the very incarnation of the blues as, head thrown back, he hollered and groaned the disturbing lyrics and flailed the guitar, snapping the strings back against the fingerboard to accentuate the agonized rhythm. Son's music is the centre of the blues experience and when he performs it is a corporeal thing, audience and singer become as one." – Bob Groom/Blues World "In the years before World War II, Son House created some of the purest, most powerful Mississippi Delta blues on record. Playing with partners Charley Patton and Willie Brown, he exerted a profound influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, both of whom copied his music and carried it to new generations. House's influence still echoes through the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and many other musicians, and in many respects, he is the true father of what's known today as deep blues."– Jas Obrecht In this lesson Tom Feldmann takes you step by step through 15 classic Son House tunes that span every phase of Son's recorded career. This 4 hour lesson is undoubtedly the most extensive look into the music of Son House and the techniques he developed. DISC ONE highlights 8 songs in Spanish tuning. While DISC TWO focuses on 7 songs using the Vestapol tuning (Open D), Standard, and most surprising to students of House's playing, Cross-Note tuning with Clarksdale Moan. Also included on DISC TWO is a bonus interview with Stefan Grossman where he talks extensively about meeting Son House and recording with him. Rare performances of Son House following his rediscovery are used throughout the lesson. The original audio tracks are included where footage is not used. Titles Include: OPEN G TUNING: Death Letter Blues, My Black Mama, Low Down Dirty Dog Blues, The Jinx Blues, Special Rider Blues, Walkin' Blues (from 1930), Dry Spell Blues, County Farm Blues OPEN D TUNING: Shetland Pony Blues, Preachin' The Blues, This Little Light of Mine, CROSS-NOTE TUNING: Clarksdale Moan, STANDARD TUNING: Depot Blues, Am I Right Or Am I Wrong, Walkin' Blues (from 1940's) 240 minutes • Level 2/3 • Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Taught by Tom Feldman

In this second DVD lesson devoted to the guitar playing of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ernie Hawkins dives into Lightnin's early catalogue from the Aladdin and Gold Star record labels. There was an amazing variety to Lightnin's early work. Listening to his early recordings we hear an artist at his prime. He effortlessly employing widely different rhythms, keys and tunings. The deeper we listen to these songs, the deeper our insight into what a master of Texas blues Lightnin' Hopkins really was. Lightnin's style itself came along at the perfect time: the advent of the electric guitar. His style, strong rhythms punctuated by his flowing but compact lead lines created a stinging and heart-tearing evocative sound. Lightnin's guitar style and technique worked great for both the acoustic or electrical guitars. The blues of Freddy King, Albert Collins, the Vaughn brothers, Billy Gibbons, testify to the power of this style. Lightnin' connects the generations of players, starting with Blind Lemon Jefferson, for whom he was lead-boy in the early 1920s. Standing tall at the center of the Texas Blues story is Lightnin’ Hopkins. In this double DVD set, Ernie Hawkins covers songs in unusual keys such as: drop D(Sugar Mama), in drop D but played in the key of A (Santa Fe Blues), in G (Bad Luck and Trouble), as well as in the usual blues in A, Come Back Baby and the country gospel Needed Time in the key of E. As a bonus, Ernie teaches his version of Lightnin's Hideway, the Freddy King tune coming back home to Lightnin'. Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. Detailed tab/music booklets are included as PDF files on both DVDs. 186 minutes • Level 2/3 • Detailed tab/music PDF files on the DVDs

Who hasn't been influenced by Mississippi Fred McDowell? Imitated by just about everyone that has picked up a slide, his impact has spread the world over. With so many trying to figure out exactly how he played, we are so fortunate to have a lesson like this one where we get to learn from the man himself. The footage of Fred McDowell seen in this lesson is a treasure because it's as if it was filmed with us, the students of McDowell's style, in mind. With clear shots of his left and right hands, it's like your own private lesson with the master himself. DISC ONE is devoted to footage of Fred McDowell performing many of his classic tunes in Open E tuning. After each performance, Tom Feldmann breaks down Fred's techniques and then goes to the split screen, playing the song slowly as you play along. DISC TWO is devoted to the recordings of McDowell in Open A tuning. Tom performs this time around as none of the available footage has McDowell performing in Open A. A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on each DVD. In addition the original recordings of all the tunes in lesson two are included. On Disc Two there is 51 minute interview with Tom Feldmann where he talks about his influences as well as performing a wide variety of tunes. Titles Include: OPEN E TUNING: When I Lay My Burden Down, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning, John Henry, Break 'Em On Down, Louise, Mojo Hand, I Heard Somebody Call OPEN A TUNING: Write Me A Few Lines, Been Drinking Out of A Hollow Log, Fred's Worried Life Blues, The Train I Ride, Kokomo Blues