Guitar | All About Blues Music

LOUISIANA RED

Louisiana Red was an extraordinary character. A huge man with a slow, deliberate manner, he was a brilliant songwriter who used the tragedies of his own experience to produce a vivid, visceral Blues. His technique on slide-guitar harked back to the Delta, but he played harp and finger-style electric guitar too, and often moved himself…

JUKE BOY BONNER

Juke Boy Bonner got his name as a kid, because he would sing along with the juke-box. This multi-instrumentalist sometimes performed as a one-man-band, and he never had a hit record, but he wrote some excellent, perceptive songs about his hard life, his opinions on ‘race-relations’ and the economics of poverty. Weldon Bonner was born…

TONY ‘TS’ McPHEE

When the British Blues Boom was getting underway, Tony McPhee was one of the kids that followed Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies around and then decided to play the Blues themselves. He had learned his chops playing the Blues club circuit so thoroughly that his band The Groundhogs were asked to back John Lee Hooker…

JIMMIE VAUGHAN

Jimmie will always be known as SRV’s big bro’, but his long contribution to Texas Blues-rock shouldn’t be underestimated. From the bar bands that inspired his kid brother to the Fabulous Thunderbirds and a long solo career, Jimmie has kept pounding out his own kind of Texas roadhouse Blues. This has resulted in fourteen albums…

RY COODER

American popular music has its roots in dozens of diverse traditions, and most of them have been investigated by Ry Cooder as he played a wide selection of stringed instruments. A highly skilled guitar picker, his wise and amusing selection of songs on a long series of albums have broadened many horizons, and pricked many…

BIG JACK JOHNSON

Big Jack Johnson played his juke-joint guitar in a down-home and dirty style that would have been common all over the Delta eighty years previously, when the Blues were being born. Jack’s father might have been playing back then, and Jack played in the family string band from an early age. Spending his whole life…

HARVEY MANDEL

Harvey Mandel is a stylish guitar player who mixes up Blues, rock and jazz techniques into a heady brew, and whose skills have seen him play with Canned Heat, John Mayall and The Rolling Stones. Including his solo career and work as a session musician, Harvey has been constantly busy with his guitar for 50…

RONNIE EARL

Ronnie Earl plays Blues guitar with jazz overtones with his band The Broadcasters, firing off guitar licks in the style of Otis Rush and Earl Hooker, and maintains a high standard of playing that has impressed those famous Blues players that shaped the music, A long career as a band leader has given Ronnie the…

ALVIN LEE

Alvin Lee was the front-man for British hard-rock band Ten Years After, a Blues-based four-piece who were very popular on the British club scene before exploding to world fame after appearing at the Woodstock Festival. Alvin played staggeringly quick-fingered guitar solos and as the tall, skinny, long-haired guy splattering guitar notes around the room, he…

WALTER TROUT

Walter Trout seems to have been around forever, an unspectacular but relentless force that draws on the roots of the Blues and adds the drive of rock music, blended into a spirit that still inspires audiences wherever he plays. Learning his chops under the guidance of some Blues legends before striking out on his own,…