It depends if you only want to concentrate on the guitar or guitar mixed in with great songs and a great singer.
SRV is a blisteringly hot player. Trying to get near him is a job for an advanced player. Same with Hendrix.
Albert King has some amazing playing but played on a guitar that was strung upside down so making his trademark bends is a tough act.
BB King plays simple and can you could transcribe a lot of his licks and phrases reasonably well. His touch and vibrato is otherwordly.
I am not a fan of Clapton’s singing or playing but he uses a lot of minor pentatonic so is accessible at many levels.
Robert Cray is ultra tasty, tidy and clean in his playing style.
Playlist
Blues from the Kings …
BB King - Spotlight On Lucille (instrumentals only)
Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign
Blues rock …
just one suggestion for now …
Free - Tons Of Sobs
The others have said it all Jeff. I’ll simply add that I preferred the second version with the more bluesy tones.
Blues improv is something I lift and lay as the mood takes me so I’m not in a position to offer any advice.
Well done with this and I look forward to following your blues progress although I dare say that gain knob will be getting cranked back up again soon.
Hi Jeff,
Really enjoyed listening to your blues lead videos. Thought you did a great job and in such a short space of time. It’s also provided a very informative thread with lots to digest. It must have taken a lot of effort to assemble the videos and with tab. Thanks for sharing, Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Best wishes,
Alan
it’s great to see how you received all of our feedbacks as it was ment with all the best intentions! So much respect for that.
And even more respect you already sat down and incorporated some of it! I wasn’t hesitating a second to check the new version: Well done, mate! Too my unexperienced ears it sounded much more bluesy, even the licks and phrases become clearer as such, so on total your melodic storyline popped out even more to me. Good stuff and shows you’re on a good way.
For any detailed advice, I’m deffo the wrong person, though. But you’re in good hands here with a lot of great input. This post is a very valuable source of wisdom already (thanks to all!).
Thanks again for sharing an update, Jeff! Very enjoyable and already looking forward to next bit!
Bit late to the party on this one so it was nice to encounter both versions. So guess I’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons and suggest the Zen path of the middle way. I’ve been known to like getting down and dirty, can’t beat a bit of edgy crunch, so I was not disappointed with the first version but can see where others are coming from. But listening to them back to back, oh yeah and after a 90 minute run out on the Harley, the low gain version sounded a bit tame to my ears. So knowing what floats your boat I’d say tone and grit wise try and find a mid point. After all its your personality at the end of the day, so you need to have your say.
On the playing front I can’t really add much to what has been said already. It was an all too familiar BT but its been some time since I visited it.
Good to see you taking those licks, learning, dissecting and rebuilding, exactly what The Man says throughout the BL bundle.
Also mapping out and planning was a great idea, I know that has always helped me. So many folk still think impro is what you make up on the spot but the wise words of sages here, who know who they are, tell you its the application of what you have learnt. So in my mind you are taking the right path starting that way. In time the licks will be automatic and you will intuitively know where they work.
Incorporating GP into the video was really helpful - I could see the lick I am currently struggling with from another piece - so need to read the tech blurb on how you did that.
Thanks David! Love those suggestions! I have jumped straight in this morning and listened to some live Robert Cray (4 Nights of 40 years Live album) on my way to work, some tasty stuff! Will pick up more of that on the way home too
Ooohweee! Loving the guitar tone on that Gary Clark Jr track! Gotta dial me in some of that!
I’ll be working through all these suggestions (and those the shared by others) over the coming weeks, got my homework sorted! If only homework was always this fun!
Thanks Richard! Your insights are again a fabulous help in guiding me. I hadn’t really put a great deal of thought into where my concentration would firmly lie, other than I needed to learn to speak the language, but thinking about it now, ideally I would work towards playing and singing, so perhaps my focus should lean towards that, but doesn’t hurt to get a taste of everything in the beginning right?!
As I mentioned to David, I have added your suggested playlist to my calendar as a reminder each day of what to listen to next and will slowly work my way through the list over the next few weeks. I have some good times ahead to look forward too!
Thanks again!
Aw! P.S. The minor/flat 3rd “blues curl” was the very next lessons in the course that I got to this morning! Perfect timing!
Hey Lisa! Thanks so much for taking more time to check out the updated version! Glad that version sounded a bit better. Still plenty to work on around tone and dynamics, but absorbing all this feedback and advice will speed up the process significantly
I beg to differ! You have great insights and experience to share, even if not specific to blues lead technique, your ear for tone and eye for improvements add much value all the same
Sure am! And so glad this is becoming a useful resource for others too! Have to take every opportunity to glean the wisdom of our more experienced colleagues eh?!
I’m actually with you on that! I’m thinking of renaming it “Three Bears Blues”, first too hot, second too cold, third just right… hopefully anyway?! Whenever I get that sorted!
Thanks, yeah it’s quite a fun process eh? I didn’t expect it to happen but it really just evolves naturally after a period of time playing them over and over.
Ah yes, those are wise words! I think I remember from that vid which JK shared of a good guitar player who was talking about how he fails all the time so don’t be fooled by the immaculate performances you see either live or online and effectively everything he does in those he’s practised a thousand times and worked it out in detail before playing it for others (I think that was the gist of it). I know there are players who can do all this on the spot, without thinking, but like you say that probably mostly comes from years of repetition and practice. I certainly found that getting it “down on paper”, so to speak, really solidified it in my mind and gave so much more structure to what I was playing. I can now see the riffs in my mind’s eye, so playing around with them seems less daunting
Glad it helped! If you have any specific questions about it, please let me know
I see you’ve been getting some suggestions for some good blues - all good I reckon.
Couldn’t let it slide without mentioning one of the greats, Gary Moore. Check out his album, Still Got The Blues, and his brilliant Blues for Greeny - Live. Doesn’t get much better than this I reckon.
Ah! I think I came across this a while back , before embarking on this journey, and thought that would be good to return to but have subsequently forgotten! Thanks for the reminder! I will be diving into that hence forth!
Excellent! Yes, of course, Gary Moore! I’ve of course heard the title track from “Still Got the Blues”, but never listened to the album or really dug deep into his catalogue, so looking forward to that! Thanks again, Shane!
Hi Jeff, I somehow missed this excellent thread up till now . But I’m glad, I’ve discovered it now - better late than never .
Blues is one of the directions I definitely want to head to along my guitar journey. So I’m always happy to see what others are experiencing and learn from them. (At least in theory, as I haven’t started the practical part yet .)
I was quite surprised to hear you play blues. I somehow haven’t expected that. And - for your first recording playing this gerne - I haven’t expected you to play it that well .
Stefan, I totally agree with you .
Although I can totally understand your reasons for the first - quite metal style - version, my favourite is definitely the second one. The bluesy vibes come across much better without the distortion - that’s at least my very subjective impression .
As I’m far behind your playing level, I can’t offer any qualified feedback, just wanted to say, that this was a very enjoyable listen, and that I’m very curious to hear more from you along your blues journey .
Ah! interesting! I really feel like Toby was correct in that there is some middle ground which would result in an overall better outcome, but glad you enjoyed the one with heavier distortion a bit more mate, all adds to my considerations on tone!
Cool! Can’t wait to see how you approach it too! Like you say, it is so interesting to see what others do on this topic, there’s so much to learn from everyone’s journeys
Yeah, I can totally understand why! I intend to do a learning log update soon to give context around adding this pathway.
Thank you! Super kind of you to say
Thanks also for this, helps a lot! Tone is a tricky journey, but this thread is helping me a lot and I’m having fun playing around with it. I hope to lock one down that’s somewhere in the middle of these two tones and do a follow-up recording with it at some stage.
Really appreciate you checking this out, Nicole, keep cool too!
So much respect for that. 
I wasn’t hesitating a second to check the new version: Well done, mate! Too my unexperienced ears it sounded much more bluesy, even the licks and phrases become clearer as such, so on total your melodic storyline popped out even more to me. Good stuff and shows you’re on a good way. 
But you’re in good hands here with a lot of great input. This post is a very valuable source of wisdom already (thanks to all!).
- so need to read the tech blurb on how you did that.
Gotta dial me in some of that! 
Glad that version sounded a bit better. Still plenty to work on around tone and dynamics, but absorbing all this feedback and advice will speed up the process significantly 
You have great insights and experience to share, even if not specific to blues lead technique, your ear for tone and eye for improvements add much value all the same 
Whenever I get that sorted! 
, before embarking on this journey, and thought that would be good to return to but have subsequently forgotten! 
.
