This volume examines the playing style of Jimmy Page. Born in 1944, Jimmy played skiffle music as a young teenager and was intrigued by everything from Scotty Moore’s playing with Elvis Presley, James Burton’s with Ricky Nelson, Cliff Gallup with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps and the great Les Paul. Combine this with his equal interest in Celtic folk, Indian and Arabian music as well as the blues work of Otis Rush, B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Robert Johnson and Elmore James, and you’ve got a musician with great depth and many facets to his musical personality.

Jimmy’s guitar playing displays many of the same signature elements as Eric Clapton, but he has a distinct sound of his own. Though Jimmy doesn’t display the virtuoso touch of Clapton, his solos are all very expressive and fiery, good examples being “Good Times, Bad Times,” “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and the incredible “Stairway to Heaven.” He relies primarily on standard blues scales and riffs, but often throws in unusual intervals or rhythmic phrases that give his playing it’s own flavor.

Kings of Blues & Rock will impact your playing in two distinctly different but equally important ways: first, you will learn all of the essential elements for soloing in the style of each of these great players; more importantly, you will be able to take this information and use it to create your own style and sound in rock and blues guitar.

The playing styles of each artist is examined in a variety of musical settings designed around the artists' signature style and performances. All of the solo segments are played first at tempo, over practice rhythm tracks, and then presented slowly with thorough explanations. Practice rhythm tracks are provided so that you can practice the solo examples as presented and work on creating your own solo variations and ideas. Also discussed is the type of guitar and amp each artist favors, and the means by which they achieve their distinct, signature sound.

Your Kings of Blues & Rock instructor, Andy Aledort is himself a "King" amongst players, editors and educators. Aledort has served as senior editor for several top guitar magazines, has authored over 200 guitar instruction books and DVDs and tours with high-profile artists such as Buddy Guy, Dickey Betts, and the Allman Brothers band.

Kings of Blues & Rock is optimized for intermediate to advanced players and is presented as interactive video software on CD-ROM (Windows and Mac compatible). The entire course features 160 full-length video lessons (20 per artist) and includes text overviews, practice rhythm tracks, standard notation and interactive Power Tab so that you can "hear" and "see" the tab/notation played out at any speed, without effecting pitch. TrueFire's video player features zoom, frame advance, looping and other handy controls.