Essentials: Blues-Rock Grooves Vol. 2

One of the great blues rockers of all time is of course Johnny Winter. His career and life took many turns for the better and worse, but he still remained one of the most influential American blues rock guitar players. On this track, we're going to take a look at something similar to what Johnny plays in the song "Memory Pain" from the record Second Winter released in 1969.

As you can see from that early release date, Johnny Winter was at the forefront of this genre of music, and in my mind does not get the full credit he deserves. Unfortunately, Johnny Winter passed away on July 16, 2014. He suffered with addiction and health problems through much of his life, however at the end of his career he was clean, sober, and on the mend.

I chose this tune for many reasons—but first of all it just rocks! Secondly, it's a 24-bar blues, which is pretty unusual, so much so that I can't even think of another one! Like all of the tunes in this course, I definitely suggest that you listen to the original version.

Apart from the interesting length of the form, there are many excellent and extremely useful fills on each of the chords that we can steal and use elsewhere. I highly recommend categorizing them in your head so you can apply them to different situations. Right off the top, the first voicing we use is fairly open and can be seen as a Cm7 or a C7#9 chord (as the third is somewhat ambiguous). Right there we have something that we can steal and use elsewhere. Often times in the blues, the third is treated with a certain degree of ambiguity giving us what we hear as "bluesy." Make sure you pay close attention to the riff on the F7 chord as you'll want to nick that one!

As I stated earlier, this is a 24 bar blues that essentially doubles the length of each chord. The song has a good number of fills in it, and it's important to remember that each chord is held twice as long as what we're used to! If you're not on top your game, you could get caught a little short finishing up that lick!

As I stated in the video, the first chord can be seen as Cm7 or C7#9 (the I7 chord). I love the lick on the IV7 or F7 chord, so be sure to recycle it. It's a little tricky, playing the low F with our thumb which can be tough to do at first. We form the rest of the chord on the fourth, third, and second strings, outlining the notes of the F7 using three note voicings. This pattern is very useful for adding some movement to the F7 chord, and the same maneuver can be used on the C7 chord, or any Dom7 chord for that matter. On the C7#9 partial voicing I also added in some vibrato on the chord, which takes a little time to master, but it's a great sound that's well worth it.

This super heavy blues riff is in the style of the band Cactus and their tune "Evil." Cactus was initially conceived in late 1969 by former Vanilla Fudge bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, after plans to team up with guitarist Jeff Beck were sidelined when Beck had an automobile accident that took him out of the music scene for over a year. They brought in guitarist Jim McCarty and singer Rusty Day, helping round out the band's heavy sound that lead people to refer to them as the "American Led Zeppelin." Although only active for a short period of time, the band has had a lasting influence on blues rockers everywhere.

The form here is a basic 12-bar blues in E, and as we see quite a bit in blues rock the third of the chords is left openly ambiguous. This definitely leads to a heavier bluesy rock sound.

One of the tricks to playing a tune like this is to dig in. As you can see in the video, I'm hitting the strings very hard which is a part of the sound of the music. Hitting the strings like that not only overdrives the amplifier but also creates a certain envelope to the notes that sounds awesome!

Oddly enough, playing aggressively like that certainly makes the music sound much more aggressive, who would have thought? ;-) Joking aside, it takes a lot of practice to play that aggressively while keeping the lick clean and in time. My suggestion is to learn the song picking normally to make sure you have the notes, then start to really dig in and get into the groove. Another example of a great riff that is played hard is Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog"—we can really hear Jimmy page hitting those strings hard on that tune, and we want to do the same here. As usual, definitely listen to "Evil" by Cactus.

One of the central techniques to get this riff right is to keep the right-hand moving using down and up strokes. The motion locks in with the proper picking pattern we need for the riff should we decide to double pick it. If you want to give it a little bit more of a Led Zeppelin style vibe, don't double pick it but keep the right-hand moving at half the speed.

The riff is based upon an E minor blues scale on the I chord. For the IV, take the same exact riffs and move it towards the floor one set of strings. For the V chord, the riff gets a little more chromatic by moving right up B D, D#, E, F, and F#, then moving down a whole step and playing the same thing. Although the riff appears to be fairly simple, to get this to sit right in the groove and be really aggressive takes some practice. Sounds great with the band and make sure that drummer keeps the cymbal wash going!