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Jimmy's Blues House

Insight and Creative Approaches for Blues Guitarists

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Jimmy's Blues House
Jimmy Vivino

Jimmy Vivino

Educator

acoustic blues, blues, chicago blues

Genres

About this course

Over the course of his career, Jimmy Vivino has led and played in countless touring, recording and house bands supporting some of the world’s biggest talent in the studio, on the stage, and on millions of television screens.

Jimmy’s Blues House is chock-full of tasty blues moves and priceless insight for “serving the song” and playing with other musicians whether you're gigging professionally with a band or jamming for fun at the local club.

”Learning how to listen to the other players, build a collective groove together, and serve the song is the key to becoming a successful musician. It’s the very foundation of any musical house.

My house was built by blues guitar legends. I just rent it and they let me live there. In this course, we’ll explore 14 rooms in the house — each one of them inspired by a blues artist that influenced my own playing in a significant way. Along the way, I’ll share a variety of approaches for serving the song and building the link between the heart and the hand.”

Jimmy Vivino has been a consistent element in Conan O’Brien’s late night career, starting with the first episode of Late Night in 1993 all the way through The Tonight Show where Jimmy served as Music Director/Guitarist/Arranger.

When not appearing on Conan’s shows, Vivino divides his time between recording sessions and live gigs throughout the country. In addition to his solo work, Vivino plays with The Prisoners of 2nd Avenue, Rumble & Twang with Lee Rocker, The Barn Burners, The Rekooperators, and the successful Beatles tribute band, The Fab Faux.

Each room in Jimmy’s “house” has its own “blues song study” including vocal parts and a rhythm section where you’ll learn a variety of ways to support the other band members and the vocalist on guitar. Most importantly, Jimmy passes on key approaches for serving the song and building the link between the “heart and the hand.”

Jimmy will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson.

You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.

Grab your guitar and let’s go to Jimmy’s house!

What you'll learn

  • Master the Jimmy Reed shuffle groove
  • Play counter-rhythms that create swing and swagger against bass patterns
  • Play a classic Memphis groove rhythm pattern
  • Learn to play rhythm guitar that supports rather than competes with vocals
  • Understand how to create space in arrangements by complementing other instruments
Release date: 08/26/2021 • 3h 38m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateguitarelectric guitarrhythmsoloing
Start Course
Sample lessons
Embellishing the Groove
Embellishing the Groove
Demonstration
Chuck Berry & Hound Dog Taylor
Chuck Berry & Hound Dog Taylor
Jimmy's Inspirations: 5
The Basic Groove
The Basic Groove
Demonstration
Embellishing the Groove
Embellishing the Groove
Demonstration

What's included

71 lessons • 44 charts • 34 Jam Tracks

Hey I’m Jimmy Vivino — welcome to my Blues House!

Over my entire career, I’ve led and played in countless touring, recording and house bands.

I’ve been fortunate to support some of the world’s biggest talent in the studio, on the stage, and on millions of television screens.

Learning how to listen to the other players, build a collective groove together, and serve the song is the key to becoming a successful musician. It’s the very foundation of any musical house.

My house was built by blues guitar legends. I just rent it and they let me live there.

In this course, we’ll explore 14 rooms in the house — each one of them inspired by a blues artist that influenced my own playing in a significant way.

Each has its own mini “blues song study” complete with vocal parts and a rhythm section where we’ll explore ways to support the band and the vocalist on guitar, and you’ll have all of TrueFire’s learning tools to work with.

Along the way, I’ll share a variety of approaches for serving the song and building the link between the heart and the hand.

We’ll explore the stylings of some of my heroes like BB King, Howlin Wolf, Chuck Berry, Elmore James, and Jimmy Reed just to name a few.

Grab your guitar and let’s go to the house!
In this video I'll discuss one of my inspirations, Lowell Fulson. Then we'll take a listen to the basic groove of our first track, which was inspired by Lowell's song "Tramp." I'll also demonstrate how your guitar has some built in effects you may not have thought about.
Now we'll dial in our tone and play through the basic groove in it's simplist form. Feel free to join in!
Here we'll be playing along with the same groove, but this time I'll demonstrate what I might play in a trio situation. Then we'll add onto our groove with some horn inspired octaves. Here we go!
In this video we'll take all three of our ideas and incorporate them in our track - full band style. Grab your guitar!
Here's some tips on pulling from your bag of tricks and playing the right thing at the right time. We've all learned from the best, but learning to use these ideas on the bandstand is a great way to help you find your own style.
In this video I'll discuss two more of my inspirations, Junior Wells & Buddy Guy. Then we'll take a listen to the basic groove of our second track, which was inspired by the Junior Wells song, "Snatch it Back."

+ 64 more lessons

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Reviews

18 results

donaldguitar

09/19/26

Huge! Just a huge leap fwd with Jimmy V's course

If you started like me, on the acoustic guitar, teaching yourself, playing some folk tunes or pop/rock songs from a song book, be prepared to be uplifted!! There are so many great guitar players at TrueFire, but this course really helped me see new areas where I can service the groove. I play semi-pro gigs ($120 with tips & beer :> ) in a Blues and Classic Rock band, and so often, if its not solo time, I'm not sure what or where to contribute. Jimmy provides multiple options for each type of tune. If you're new to electric guitar or old time R&B, by the time you finish the 2nd study session with Jimmy you'll be well on your way to taking your spot on the bandstand. Plus, he has so many great personal stories about the guys that made this music famous around the world. Love it. Thanks so much Jimmy V. Donald Guitar

Len1942

Verified buyer

01/02/26

One most Useful Course I got in 2025 🎸

Have both of Jimmy Vivino’s courses from Truefire: Blueshouse, Boogie Down. & Jimmy’s Blueshouse. Still working on Jimmy’s Blueshouse. They’re both great. Cannot see having one without the other.

BDHerndon

Verified buyer

12/13/25

Great Content

This course is full of fun tunes to play that will really get people to want to stand up and dance.

a.reyes@btinternet.com

Verified buyer

09/22/24

Jimmy is THE BEST !

It is not often that you come across a highly respected, artist who can demonstrate also being able to perform as a top instructor in the first 2 lessons in an online course; but Jimmy definitely does it with his dynamic, non-nonsense approach. He goes straight to the point and only adds true content relating to either (in this particular course) the roots and history of Blues or -even more unique- his own wealth of experience. I have no doubt these is going to be an excellent course I'll be fully engaged with (if not obsessed!). Thank you Vinny and Truefire Team, truly great value for money! Antonio (LP JR DC TV)

pmorey

Verified buyer

11/26/22

An entertaining storyteller as well as a master musician.

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