101 Mississippi Delta Blues Cotton Picking Guitar Licks

Comb-bound country blues fingerstyle guitar instruction book and CD.

Fingerpicking blues guitar music is rooted in the work songs, field hollers and spirituals of rural Southern blacks. Many music historians think that blues music first emerged in the Delta area of northwestern Mississippi in the late 1800s.

With its many cotton plantations, the Delta was home to a concentrated population of black sharecroppers. By 1900, itinerant black musicians were playing blues guitar at fish fries, picnics, saloons, railroad depots and elsewhere for drinks and tips.

This unique book features 101 fingerpicking blues guitar licks in standard tuning in the Southern country blues guitar style. The book is for any acoustic guitarist who already has some basic fingerpicking skills and an interest in traditional styles such as parlor guitar, ragtime guitar, slack key guitar, and similar roots music.

The ideas here are useful for fingerboard orientation, technical study, conceptual absorption, vocabulary development, and application to original arrangements or acoustic blues guitar solos. It is a fun and rewarding book for any guitarist who wants to learn country blues guitar licks.

The licks are similar to what one might hear on traditional race recordings on labels such as Okeh Records and Paramount Records, played by fingerstyle guitar players across a wide spectrum including Mississippi blues, Piedmont blues, jug band blues, Texas country blues, Memphis blues, and related roots guitar and musical styles.

Overall, an excellent blues guitar reference book and an excellent value.

Contents

• Four-beat Fingerpicking Blues Licks (in seven keys)
• Eight-beat Fingerpicking Blues Licks (in seven keys)
• Introductions and Turnarounds (in five keys)
• Guide to Symbols and Notation
• Selected Discography
• All 101 licks included on a 99-track CD

Prerequisite Ability

• Early intermediate or intermediate blues guitar player.

User Profiles

• Serious hobbyist acoustic blues guitar player.
• Gigging country blues guitar player looking for new ideas.
• Folk guitar player who wants to learn traditional blues.
• Flatpicking guitar player who wants to learn some classic blues fingerstyle licks.
• Guitar teachers who teach fingerpicking guitar lessons.

Goals and Purposes

• Learn fingerstyle blues guitar licks in the acoustic country blues style.
• General acoustic guitar instruction.
• Develop fingerstyle technique.
• Greater familiarity with guitar fingerboard.
• Learn acoustic blues fingerpicking turnarounds.
• Learn blues licks to apply to blues arrangements or original songs.

Author Recommendations for Supplemental Listening

Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Charley Jordan, Frank Stokes, Lightning Hopkins, Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, Pink Anderson, Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Ishman Bracey, Tommy Johnson, Henry Thomas, Charlie Patton, Robert Wilkins, Bo Carter, Memphis Minnie, Funny Papa Smith, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Etta James, Elizabeth Cotton, Mance Lipscomb, Papa Charlie Jackson, Sleepy John Estes, Skip James, Sam McGee, Big Bill Broonzy, Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly), Tommy McClennan, Willie Brown, Sam Collins, and similar fingerpickers. These vintage guitar players invariably provide unlimited enjoyment and inspiration.

Emerging guitarists who are fans of postwar blues guitarists such as Dave Van Ronk, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Ry Cooder, Stefan Grossman, Jorma Kaukonen, Tom Rush, and Rory Block will also find much value here.