Improvising Blues Guitar - John Wheatcroft

When the latest package from Schott arrived containing ‘Improvising Blues Guitar’ at Alloutguitar Towers - and we clocked it was written by John - we all looked forward to diving into this as one thing would be assured: Quality...

The basic structure of the book is that the essential key components of key guitarists from the dawn of Blues are examined - alongside the techniques and harmonic factors they brought to the genre and broken down into chapters (see below) with several musical performances and backing tracks for you to play along to, alongside detailed examination of the concepts, musical examples and loads of relevant chord/scale/arpeggio diagrams as appropriate.

With a player of John’s calibre one would expect the playing examples to be excellent, and they do not disappoint! Whilst all are accurate a few bear extra mentions: his Buddy Guy absolutely nails the mans vibrato; the BB King has a playful lightness of touch, the Robert Cray (a man hard to emulate) is so close... The Freddy King (absolutely required listening for those who wish to delve into Claptons original style) is a text book example of combining Major and Minor pentatonic phrase’s in a cohesive fashion. The Jeff Beck examples really nail that fake slide approach El Becko uses to such effect... I could go on but you get the idea!

For the rockier readers the Eric Johnson study provides a text book example of nailing this highly idiosyncratic player’s style, whilst the Gray Moore example portrays not only the Irish firebrands style to great effect, but also shows licks in their own right that could be from Paul Gilbert’s Pentatonic sequencing vocabulary and Viv Campbell’s speedy pentatonic repeating licks. The Joe Bonamassa example shows the debt he owes to many of the above players whilst showing his own slant on a genre that for many seemed moribund until his recent ascendance to global popularity.

With excellent Jazz blues players such as Larry Carlton and Robben Ford covered in equally comprehensive style as well as slide and ‘modern’ acoustic players covered this is pretty much all that you will ever need to truly nail the Blues!

Chapter Breakdown

1 Acoustic Blues & The Delta

Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Robert Johnson

2 Chicago Blues

Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy, Mike Bloomfield

3 Memphis & Detroit

John Lee Hooker, BB King, Albert King, Robert Cray

4 Early Texas Blues

T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Albert Collins, Otis Rush

5 The British Blues Boom

Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, PeterGreen

6 Country Blues & Rock’n’Roll

Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry, Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton

7 New Wave Texas

Jimmy Vaughan, Duke Robillard, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson

8 Rock-Hot Blues

Jimi Hendrix, Gary Moore, Walter Trout, Joe Bonamassa

9 Jazz Blues

Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Larry Carlton, Robben Ford

10 Slide Masters

Elmore James, Ry Cooder, Duane Allman, Sonny Landreth

11 Acoustic Blues Revival

Bob Brozman, Rory Gallagher, John Hammond, Keb’ Mo’

To conclude this is a superbly presented book and CD package that pretty much covers all you’ll ever need to nail this genre. It is of great use to players of all styles who wish to gain an authority in their blues playing that may have been previously lacking.

This is essential study material for almost all guitarists out there, irrespective of present style and ability. Having played and taught for many years in the rock/metal world, I am only too aware that when the chips are down almost all players fall back on their pentatonic ‘blues lick’ cliché’s. This book will enable you to gain a fresh insight to key players in the blues world in a clear and concise fashion: it will also help you to breath new life into your use of the humble pentatonic scale in fresh and exciting new ways.

Nothing can ever replace actually playing in a sweaty blues bar/pub/club and being thrown in at the deep end - and having to cover it!. There is no doubt that you will still need many months and years to truly nail any of the featured artists styles, but short of hitching a ride to Memphis, and pawning all your possessions to ‘live the life’, this is a close as you are likely to get to gain a true education in the art of the blues. Essential!