If you're a guitarist looking to level up your Chicago blues guitar skills, going through this “Hoochie Coochie Man” guitar lesson is the perfect place to start. This post will take you through the basics of the style and share chords, riffs, and scales for learning how to jam along to this blues classic.

Who originally wrote Hoochie Coochie Man?

The original writer of “Hoochie Coochie Man” was the American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, and record producer Willie Dixon. While Dixon was primarily known as an upright bass player, he was also a competent guitarist and is regarded as one of the most prolific blues songwriters of his time. 

In this post, I’ll be sharing with you tips about various versions. However, it's worth noting that the first recorded version of "Hoochie Coochie Man" was by Muddy Waters in 1954. Waters’ version is a prime example of how the blues started to transition from more acoustic Delta-based styles...

If you're a guitarist looking to add some bluesy flavor to your playing, this "Catfish Blues" guitar lesson is a great starting point. This guide covers the basics of the style, from essential chords and fingerpicking techniques to tips for adding your own personal touch. With these skills, you'll be able to jam with friends and have a lot of fun playing the blues."

Understanding the Roots of Catfish Blues 

To master the "Catfish Blues" style on guitar, it's important to understand its roots. This blues style originated in the Mississippi Delta region in the early 20th century and was heavily influenced by African American folk music and the blues. The style features fingerpicking, slide guitar, and distinctive chord progressions that set it apart from other blues styles.

Who originally wrote Catfish Blues?

Robert Petway, an American blues singer and guitarist born in 1903, is credited as the original composer of "Catfish Blues". His influential style heavily influenced later...

If you're a guitarist looking to add some classic blues to your setlist, look no further than this "I'd Rather Go Blind" guitar lesson. This guide will walk you through chords, strumming patterns, and arpeggio-picking techniques you'll need to play in this soulful blues style.

I’d Rather Go Blind Chords

To play "I'd Rather Go Blind" on guitar, start by learning the chords and progression. This classic blues tune uses a simple chord progression of A to Bm, which loops continuously throughout the song. In this section, we'll go over the chord shapes you'll need to play this tune.

For A major play this:

And for Bm you can play this in the 2nd position like this:

Now a lot of the time players think of this Bm chord shape as being a bar chord. However, notice that you can just play it on the middle 4 strings, and this would require no baring at all. When you do this you want to mute off the low 6th and high 1st strings. 

If that chord is too hard you could also substitute...

If you’re looking to improve your 12-string blues guitar playing, look no further than this ‘Life By The Drop’ guitar lesson. In this post, I’ll share with you how to play the version of the song as recorded by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan’s recording was done on a 12-string acoustic guitar, and it is chock full of incredible blues guitar techniques, chords, scales, and concepts you can steal and add to your own guitar playing. 

Who wrote Life By The Drop?

The original writer of “Life By The Drop” was Doyle Bramhall. Bramhall was a neighborhood friend of Vaughan’s in West Dallas, Texas. Brahmhall was a drummer and singer, but he never achieved the same success as Vaughan. However, later he did record an album with the Vaughan Brothers called Family Style. and he had two successful solo albums.

What tuning is Life By The Drop?

 While a lot of guitar players may feel this song is in an alternate tuning, it is actually in...

Have you ever wondered how Eric Clapton gets such an incredible electric blues guitar sound? 

Do you want to learn some insider secrets to unlock some of his signature blues guitar tricks? 

Do you want to learn to improvise with the 12-bar blues chord progression? 

If so, keep reading…

It was the evening of March 10th, 1968 when Cream took the stage at the Winterland in San Francisco. At that moment, to them, it may have just felt like another gig and another performance of a blues song that they'd been playing since their early gig days.

But what happened next was truly a moment of capturing lightning in a bottle. Now, over a half-century later, this iconic recording is revered as one of the most epic live performances in the history of blues and rock. And as a guitar player, this one is a complete masterclass of elite blues and rock techniques and improvisations.

In this article, I’ll share with you key points to learn to play “Crossroads”...

If you're looking to improve your blues guitar skills and learn a classic tune, look no further than these Stormy Monday guitar lessons. With this masterclass and step-by-step instruction, I will share with you how to learn the chords, techniques, solos, and all the nuances you'll need to master this blues guitar masterpiece.

Whether you want to jam with friends or simply play this song at home in your music room, you won't regret adding it to your blues guitar repertoire.

Who wrote Stormy Monday?

The original writer of "Stormy Monday" was an American blues electric guitar pioneer named T-Bone Walker. He was influential in shifting the blues from acoustic styles to the electric guitar. His signature style was heavily influenced by combining the blues with jazz and big band swing styles from the early 1940s.

"Stormy Monday" has become a blues guitar standard and is often regarded as one of the greatest blues guitar chord progressions of all time. This slow blues has been...

In this post, I'll share with you a guitar lesson on how to play "Call Me The Breeze," as recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd. You may be wondering who originally wrote "Call Me the Breeze?" The original writer of this classic blues jam was American guitarist and singer-songwriter J.J. Cale.

"Call Me The Breeze" first appeared on Cale's 1972 debut album, Naturally, as the opening track. Cale's version has a soulful rhythm and blues-style guitar groove to it, and also features a lo-fi sounding drum machine.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's version takes the energy up a couple of notches with more driving guitar tones and horns.

In this article, I'll break down some key points to understanding the guitar groove and style used in this classic blues jam.

Call Me The Breeze Chords

To start off this "Call Me The Breeze" guitar lesson, you'll only need to know three chords to be able to play along to the entire song.

Now keep in mind, these three chords are the foundation and a level 1 approach, while the actual...

In this lesson, I'll be sharing with you how to play the groove to one of John Lee Hooker's best-known songs, "Boogie Chillen." To play this song, we'll be tuning to an open A tuning, and we'll be using a capo on the 2nd fret to move it up to B concert pitch.

Hailing from a Mississippi sharecropping family, Hooker learned to play blues guitar from his stepfather, and he rose to fame performing an electric style heavily influenced by Delta blues.

Now, you may be thinking what style of music is Boogie Chillen? Well this song has that exact deep Delta-style blues groove to it, and it's pretty tough to emulate, but I'll break down a number of the techniques and riffs you can use to get the sound.

What tuning is Boogie Chillen in?

Let's first talk about what tuning Boogie Chillen is in. The tuning is open A tuning. To get to an open A tuning from standard tuning, we'll need to adjust strings 4, 3, and 2 from our typical standard guitar tuning. The notes from low to high for...

Today I want to bust a myth floating around out there in the guitar world about guitar solos! For some reason a lot of players, especially ones that are newer to improvising often think, “Well to really be doing it, I have to be able to play up and down my entire guitar neck”, or “I'm not really a soloist until I've mastered all the positions of my pentatonic scales, and blues scales etc.”

Maybe they had a teacher tell them in a lesson, well if you want to solo you’ve got to learn more theory first. I love how often guitar players speak of music theory as if it's some magic pill. Like “oh yeah just learn more theory, and then it will all make sense, and you’ll be able to solo.”

While that stuff isn’t going to hurt you, and yes, if you want to become a complete zen master musical guru than by all means study it all.

However, is it necessary to know a lot if you just want to start playing some licks or trying a...

Do you find yourself wondering how to get a bluesy sound out of your guitar?
Are you trying to learn to play like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, or Eric Clapton?

Well if so this lesson can help!

In this guitar lesson, I am going to share with you the #1 scale that you need to know for playing blues guitar. 

Blues Scale Theory

The scale we are going to cover here is the blues scale, so let's first start by talking a bit about the theory and how this scale is constructed. The blues scale is a six note scale, and to form this scale we can start on any note, and play a sequence of other notes after it and this will build the scale. The intervals of this scale go like this: 

• 1 (root note)
• b3 (minor third)
• 4 (perfect fourth)
• b5 (diminished fifth)
• 5 (perfect fifth)
• b7 (minor seventh)

Now it's important to note: that when guitarists typically refer to the blues scale what they actually mean is the minor blues scale. So this is what we are building here, and when you use these...