Mark Twang Live

Posts Tagged ‘play’

Twang says this has always been one of top guitar sounds. Watching the Great Holllywood Fats live playing this stuff was awesome. CHeck out some free blues guitar lessons over at truefire.
Many a guitar legend has cut their teeth and left their mark on the jazz-influenced blues style known as “West Coast Blues” (aka “jump” blues): Charlie Christian, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Albert Collins, Johnny Guitar Watson, Duke Robillard, Hollywood Fats, Little Charlie Baty are just a few. But T-Bone Walker is likely the genre’s definitive guitarist. Relocating from Texas to Los Angeles in the early 40′s, Walker’s “electrification and urbanization of the blues” and catalog of blues hits for Capitol, Black & White, and Imperial would “popularize the use of electric guitar in the form more so than anyone else.” T-Bone’s “distinct jazzy jump blues” feel – Texas blues with a pinch of bebop, a dash of rockabilly, and a whole lotta swing – would influence the music scene in California during the 1940′s and 1950′s with many other Texas bluesmen following the migration to the west coast. So many of the blues licks we play today, which we’ve copped from our current and previous generation blues heroes, are actually rooted back to jump and West Coast blues phrases – especially the tasty ones! We all pretty much agree that implying changes, as opposed to just blowing pentatonic runs, is what separates the men from the boys when soloing over standard blues changes. Implying changes, targeting tones, applying extensions are key elements of the West Coast style and good reason enough to study the genre. But …