The Blues Guitar Of John Lee Hooker

Description

Of all the guitarists that I've listened to and studied over the years, John Lee Hooker is the one steeped in the real DNA of the blues.

You can't help but be drawn into the primitive and simplistic way that with just a few riffs and chords, he conjured up the sound of both the Mississippi Delta and west coast Africa. Somehow, he managed to instinctively avoid the normal rhythms of his peers in the early days of the Delta. The twelve bar patterns and blues formats that we associate with players like Robert Johnson, were definitely missing in the dark and tribal sounds of Hooker's playing. He favoured a more loose and hypnotic combination of runs and chords to accompany his talking style of blues and story telling.

There are two shades that we can associate with his unique guitar playing. One, is John Lee, picking repetive riffs on an acoustic in a blues/folk style with tunes like 'Tupelo' or 'I'll Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive', the other being the heavier electric and fiercer rhythms of the 'Boom Boom Boom' era. Both shades still sounding more at home in Mali than the Delta.

To me, John Lee sounds the best sitting alone with an acoustic or Sheraton guitar accompanied by the solid foot tapping that was so typical of his sound. In this way you can begin to appreciate that he really was the most 'blues' sounding of all the blues guitarists. When I'm giving a blues guitar workshop I often say if you want to play authentic blues guitar there's only one riff you need, and that of course is one by the genius that was John Lee Hooker!

In this course I'll be sharing with you some of these riffs and exploring the ways you can begin to sound just like the 'Healer' himself. You can choose to use an acoustic or electric, either way setttle down, get your foot tapping and let's play some 'Hooker Blues'

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