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Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:31 pm
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I cannot believe that anyone thinks BB King cannot play chords, but amazingly this misunderstanding is repeated around a lot. Wow! The man flies airplanes. You think he cannot make a "c" chord? Unreal.

This kind of stuff is fine for a journalist who's never held a guitar, but we play here right? What's the first thing you learn: chords. BB's a little beyond his first lesson. This kind of stuff gets picked up and repeated and takes on a life of it's own.

BB King admits he can play chords in this interview. He also explains where the unbelievable misunderstanding on that U2 DVD started. Being unduly humble, BB says he knows "some" chords. Try every one ever played. Buy his music and play it and you'll play every chord.


"RW: Tell me, at what point did you give yourself permission not to learn chords?

BB: My manager is lookin at you weird.

RW: He's givin me the go.

BB: I'll answer this last question. I never gave myself permission. That's stupidity. I never gave myself permission not to.

RW: You're an excellent musician. I'm sure you can learn chords.

BB: I know some chords. I'm not shall we say fluent as alot of musicians are. But the chords that I know I can't play them behind myself. If I'm singing and trying to play something I cannot play properly behind myself, the chords that should be there. That's what I meant, but if you come in and catch the show tonight you'll hear me play chords.

RW: I can't wait. Are you in the zone pretty naturally now?

BB: No, you're off. Whatever you do, you have to keep in tune. I'm always trying - do you see this thing here? Points to laptop.

RW: Yes, I do. It's a little unexpected.

BB: Why do you think so? I'm a pilot also. I fly airplanes. You can't ever tell.

RW: You can't ever tell. That's true. How long have you been flying?

BB: Since 1963. To answer your question, no, you continuously have to learn. If I - I'm off sometime like 2-3 weeks- I have to learn my routines in my head again or I'll forget some of the songs. I forget. I have to go back and get them in my head again. Because I gotta have at least 14 or 15 songs to remember the lines in my head. It's sortof like an actor or actress. I have to remember these lines and you kinda dramatize them you don't just say them you know you got to make it make some sense. So to answer your question I have to practice just like everybody else. I don't practice enough - never have. "


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:27 am
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strat58cat wrote:
I cannot believe that anyone thinks BB King cannot play chords, but amazingly this misunderstanding is repeated around a lot. Wow! The man flies airplanes. You think he cannot make a "c" chord? Unreal.

This kind of stuff is fine for a journalist who's never held a guitar, but we play here right? What's the first thing you learn: chords. BB's a little beyond his first lesson. This kind of stuff gets picked up and repeated and takes on a life of it's own.

BB King admits he can play chords in this interview. He also explains where the unbelievable misunderstanding on that U2 DVD started. Being unduly humble, BB says he knows "some" chords. Try every one ever played. Buy his music and play it and you'll play every chord.


"RW: Tell me, at what point did you give yourself permission not to learn chords?

BB: My manager is lookin at you weird.

RW: He's givin me the go.

BB: I'll answer this last question. I never gave myself permission. That's stupidity. I never gave myself permission not to.

RW: You're an excellent musician. I'm sure you can learn chords.

BB: I know some chords. I'm not shall we say fluent as alot of musicians are. But the chords that I know I can't play them behind myself. If I'm singing and trying to play something I cannot play properly behind myself, the chords that should be there. That's what I meant, but if you come in and catch the show tonight you'll hear me play chords.

RW: I can't wait. Are you in the zone pretty naturally now?

BB: No, you're off. Whatever you do, you have to keep in tune. I'm always trying - do you see this thing here? Points to laptop.

RW: Yes, I do. It's a little unexpected.

BB: Why do you think so? I'm a pilot also. I fly airplanes. You can't ever tell.

RW: You can't ever tell. That's true. How long have you been flying?

BB: Since 1963. To answer your question, no, you continuously have to learn. If I - I'm off sometime like 2-3 weeks- I have to learn my routines in my head again or I'll forget some of the songs. I forget. I have to go back and get them in my head again. Because I gotta have at least 14 or 15 songs to remember the lines in my head. It's sortof like an actor or actress. I have to remember these lines and you kinda dramatize them you don't just say them you know you got to make it make some sense. So to answer your question I have to practice just like everybody else. I don't practice enough - never have. "

Not sure who (if anyone other than himself) said BB King couldn't play chords, of course he can. I'm sure BB was being humble in the U2 movie. I did see BB a couple of months ago and he did only do lead work at his show, but he is still very good. A great story teller as well.


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:08 am
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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website says BB cannot play chords, from that U2 movie. Unreal. It's like when some kids think Clapton must play slow, since his nicknames "Slowhand." British irony is lost on some people.


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:10 am
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Keith Wyatt - Blues Guitar Lessons DVD. may help Cheers :wink:


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:45 am
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Right on, strat58cat.

Are you into Joe Bonamassa too? I'd love to hear your views on him. There's another gentleman who also does a good line in modest - I heard him affecting not to be quite sure what inversions are. And he's been opening for BB since he was 12.

Oh, man...!


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Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:39 am
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Ceri wrote:
Right on, strat58cat.

Are you into Joe Bonamassa too? I'd love to hear your views on him. There's another gentleman who also does a good line in modest - I heard him affecting not to be quite sure what inversions are. And he's been opening for BB since he was 12.

Oh, man...!


Oh, man... I've JUST gotten into Joe B (thanks Guitarist magazine). In fact, I bought his live CD today.

Watching him play on youtube and listening to his live stuff, it seems that a lot of his "rythm" work (like while he's singing and stuff) is pretty simple. And his riffs don't seem too complicated. But, man his soloing blows me away. I got the live album 'cuz it's a power-trio. I think you can really get an idea of what a guitarist is made of when you strip away the layers of studio magic and huge bands.

At any rate, so far I'm very impressed with Sr. Bonamassa. Great blues-rock in the vein of the heyday of classic rock.[/i]


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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:26 am
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Hi again, strat58cat

Guitarist magazine - ha-ha! I was at the Sheperds Bush gig where they did their big Joe Bonamassa feature, so I came over all enthusiastic and wrote them a sort of adolescent fan letter about it. And this month they not only printed it but made it their "Star Letter", so I won those DigiTech pedals! I had a friendly correspondence with Mick Taylor about it - but the pedals still haven't turned up yet...

If you want just one Bonamassa CD, get You and Me. It's like all that's best about SRV, Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck - without, dare I say it, the less interesting bits (sorry: sacrilege).

And see Bonamassa live, there's just nothing to touch it! He's still small enough over here you can see him in tiny 400-standing type venues. Both times I've been six feet in front of the pedal board - flippin' knockout!


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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:25 am
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On his live album, he does this slow minor blues number called "If Heartaches were Nickles." Oh, man, that's soulful! It's almost as good as Zep's "Since I Been Lovin' You."

I went back looking through some old guitar mags, and in a 2001 issue of Guitar World, they did a feature on 10 up-and-coming guitarists. John Mayer and Joe Bonamassa were both in there looking all babyfaced and wet-behind-the-ears. I thought that was funny; I ignored that article when I first read it, but now keep finding some of the guys I'm learning about were foretold there!


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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:54 am
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Sorry, I addressed my last post to strat58cat when I was in fact replying to yitty79. How rude of me.

Bonamassa has another slow 3/4 number called Asking Around For You. When we saw him the other week my wife had just had a terrible bereavement in her family - we really shouldn't have been going to a gig, but she bought the tickets: cool wife. Words in songs were having all kinds of meanings for her that night that the band never put there. Asking Around For You is quite a sweet number, but it starts "When I get to heaven..." and my wife suddenly burst into tears and buried her face on my shoulder.

From then on, anything could set her off. I kept saying we should leave but she didn't want to. So we stayed and she alternately jived and wept her way through the show. I don't know if Joe could see us from the stage - we were close - but I'm guessing floods of tears are not the reaction he's quite used to when he sets off on a solo...!

Intense, though.


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Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 pm
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No problem talking to me when you're talking to somebody else. We need good young players to keep the Blues alive. A Les Paul guy.

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Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:07 am
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Oh dear. I'm neither a good nor a young player. Just a geezer who spends too much time thinking and talking about gear and music...


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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:28 am
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strat58cat wrote:
No problem talking to me when you're talking to somebody else. We need good young players to keep the Blues alive. A Les Paul guy.


You're talking about Joe Bonamassa, right?

Funny thing is, he was a Strat guy for a very long time (specifally, an Eric Clapton Strat guy) Turns out he's in a bunch of my old guitar mags. In one of them they're interviewing him right after he switched to being primarily a Les Paul guy.


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Post subject: Re: Stratocaster Blues
Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:25 pm
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tonesfernandezz wrote:
This is going to sound utterly rediculous, but I cannot get a blues sound out of my strat, its not the pickups, its not my amp, its not my overdrive, its me. I can play slower blues stuff, but I just don't know any actual licks at a decent speed, my friend picked up my guitar and just pulled some real bluesy sounding licks. I'm talking Muddy Waters kind of decent improvised solos, its really annoying me as i'm pretty sure its not my technical abilities but that I just haven't worked any of them out. Please help me


Music is a mystery in the beginning, a discipline in the middle and an exctacy once achieved. Miles Davis once had a conversation with Dizzy Gillespie where he asked why he was not able to play as fast as Dizzy. Dizzy told Miles, "It's because you don't hear as fast as I do." With time and patience you will be able to hear all the little notes that your hearing is not trained to pick up at this time. When you hear it in your head you'll be able to play it with your hands. Until then, practice scales, chord progressions and *listen* to as much of the type of music you want to play as much as you can. The masters lead the way.

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Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:52 pm
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On Topic-
"A-one AND uh two AND uh three And uh four AND uh". Blues shuffles like to be played with emphisis on the back beat, or the AND of "one-e-and-uh two-e-and-uh three-e-and-uh four-e-and-uh" Drop the "e's" and dot the down beat (the numbers), suddenly you're playing a shuffle.

Triplet Blues like the down beat. ONE-uh-let TWO-uh-let THREE-uh-let FOUR-uh-let

I'm a better learner than teacher, so sorry if that's not very clear.

About BB-
I think when he say's he "Can't Play Chords" I'm pretty sure he means playng chords "dosn't come as naturally as lead lines, so if you don't want to wait till tomorrow, you play the chords"

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