Joe12Bar

2nd Annual Old Town Blues Fest

2012-01-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

I'm just now finalizing plans for my 2nd Annual Old Town Blues Fest, which will be all day Saturday, April 7 (from 2 pm to 10 pm), at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, Arizona. And, once again, I'm really happy to be partnering with William Eaton, owner and manager of the OTCA.

We have lots and lots of talent this year.

Alex Ogburn will warm up the audience as they enter the theater with his expert solo acoustic guitar blues. The first on-stage performance will be by the 6-member, high-energy, Prescott-based Shri Blues Band. Then another solo acoustic set by Lance Garrett, followed by the Don Whitcher on lap steel and Gregg Gould on guitar.

After a dinner break, the headliners will take the stage, starting out with Hans Olson from Phoenix and finishing up with LA guitar slinger Fran Banish, who will be backed by my own band, Blues Dawg.

And, we'll most certainly have a jam session to end the show! Can't wait - gonna be fun!

My Current Rig

2011-12-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

Somewhat as a follow-up to my last post about my amplifier, I've recently simplified by gigging rig, taking advantage of the tonal opportunities of my Bassman.

For the past couple of years, I've experimented with all kinds of overdrive and distortion pedals, some stock, some modified, some boutique, some mass produced. I was trying to populate a small pedal board that could give me the three or four tones I need and want to play the blues.

But since getting the Bassman serviced, I already have two of those tonal options with just my Telecaster and the Bassman - clean and mild overdrive, for both rhythm and lead playing, controlled with the volume knob on my guitar.

To that very basic of basic rigs I've only added two more items. First, a Planet Waves headstock tuner that attaches to the guitar's headstock and eliminates the need for a pedal tuner; and, second, a good old Boss Blues Driver, for some medium overdrive tones.

And to make it even better, the BD-2 sits on top of the amp and is powered by a battery, further eliminating the need for a pedal board and a power supply.

I'm pretty pleased with the set-up. Looking forward to my next gig with it!

Amp Service

2011-12-20T13:40:00.001-08:00

As I've previously discussed here, my main amp is a 1970 Fender Bassman head that some guy in Texas converted into a 2x10 combo. The cabinet is just a touch larger than a Deluxe Reverb. I've had it for about 12 years, purchasing it from the good Texan off of Ebay.

When I first got it, I had my amp tech in Los Angeles give it a good going over, including replacing the speakers with 2 Celestion Vintage 3o's. It sounded great, both clean with lots of headroom and with all manner of overdrive pedals in front of it.

But this past year, it's been sounding a little fuzzy. I replaced the power tubes (2 x JJ 6L6GC) by myself but that didn't help. I replaced the preamp tubes (2 x Ratheon Blackplate 12AX7), still the same problem. So I took it down to an amp tech in Phoenix - Gary Powers - and he did some magic on it.

First of all, the filter caps were original - 1970! He replaced them. Big improvement.

Then he put a NOS Sylvania 12AT7 in the phase inverter spot. Huge improvement.

So now my old Bassman combo is sounding better than ever. I'm happy!

Holiday Blues Revue

2011-11-07T13:37:00.001-08:00

This will be the fourth year that I'm producing and performing in the Holiday Blues Revue, a fun night of blues somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This year's show will be on Saturday, December 3 and will be held for the third straight year at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, Arizona.

It started out as a show featuring my 3-piece Blues Dawg band with 3 or 4 other musical guests on stage. Two of my regular guests - Keys Marsh on keyboard and Duane Ewing on sax - have become full-time members of Blues Dawg earlier this year.

So this year's show features my 5-piece Blues Dawg band with one guest - the amazing and versatile guitarist, Dan Bresnan.

"Tone Manual" by Dave Hunter

2011-10-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I blogged about Dave Hunter's books on guitars, amps, pickups, pedals and rigs. I just finished reading his sixth book - Tone Manual: Discovering Your Ultimate Electric Guitar Sound."

Hunter pretty much covers all the topics of his previous books, but with more cohesiveness as to how each part of the signal chain contributes to the overall sound and tone coming out of your amplifier's speakers.

He also adds some new topics and a whole lot of insights into the mysteries, myths and tonal facts of guitar playing. I particularly enjoyed his discussions of low vs. high output pickups and guitar vs. amp volume.

Tone Manual is an easy read if you've read Hunter's other books, as I have, but if it's your first experience with the author, it will make you want to go out and get all of them. Highly recommended.

Paloma Stone Slides

2011-10-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Finding the perfect slide is as hard as finding the perfect guitar or the perfect amp. You would think that with the multitude of glass, brass, steel and ceramic slides available in various sizes and colors it would be easy. But it’s not – most likely, you’ll end up compromising. You’ll settle for one that’s too tight, or too loose, too short or too long, too bright or too dull. And you’ll make due and play as well as your abilities allow you.

Not me! I’m not the world’s greatest slide player but I like to play a little slide as part of my guitar repertoire. And, I’ve experimented with all kinds of slides, finally settling on a Dunlop #218 glass slide.

That is until I discovered Paloma Stone Slides made by Jay Seibert. He makes high quality stoneware guitar slides and I’m here to tell you that my slide playing improved dramatically as soon as I put one of Jay’s slides on the ring finger of my left hand – a beautiful dark blue glazed piece of stoneware, 20 mm inside and 47 mm long. (Jay offers a good choice of sizes - inner dimensions and lengths.)

The fit is perfect, not too tight and not too loose. The weight and balance are perfect, with an equal touch across the strings of both my vintage, small radius neck Strat and my flat radius Tele. And the tone – a rich, musical tone that’s just perfect for the blues I play, great playing clean right into my amp and great playing dirty through a distortion pedal.

It gets even better. I mostly play electric, but the Paloma Stone Slide is as good with my Gibson acoustic, too.

If you play slide, you owe it to yourself to check these out. You’ll be amazed!

WTF? Is That Blues?

2011-09-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Blues Dawg recently competed in a regional "battle of the blues bands" competition. Although I don't believe in "beauty contests" for music or any of the arts, I thought the experience would tighten up our band and give us a gauge of how we stack up against other bands from the "big city."

We were told that the competition would be objectively judged based on five criteria, the two most important of which would be blues content and originality (meaning original songs would score higher than cover songs).

There was a preliminary round one week, with the five best bands moving on to the finals the next week.

We performed extremely well, playing three original blues songs in our twenty-minute allotted time. We were the only band to perform an all-blues and all-original set. And, we nailed it, playing as well as we've ever played before.

When all the dust settled at the end of the day, we didn't make it to the finals. In and by itself, that's okay. But what's not okay is the bands that did make it to the finals. None of them played much, if any, blues songs. None were tight as a band, although there were several great individual players on stage. None played with any sense of dynamics, going mostly for a muddy, wall-of-sound approach.

And, sadly, all were variations of the cliche, artificial theatrics, blues-hat bar bands that unfortunately populate too much of the local live music scene.

This post really isn't about the sour grapes of not winning. I could care less about that. It's about the sad state of the blues today, something that Blues Dawg is trying to do something about.

Oh, well...hope to see you out there when we're out there playing the blues!

Jimi Hendrix: Blues

2011-09-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

I've been going through some of my old blues cd's lately, looking for some inspiration. Pulled a 1994 compilation cd of Hendrix playing the blues (Jimi Hendrix: Blues) and gave it a listen - 11 tracks of which 7 are originals, all blues and all Jimi!

Wow!

We all know Hendrix as the out-of-this-world rock guitarist that he was, and always assumed he was rooted in the blues, but I forgot just how well he played the blues.

According to Johnny Winter, "He was a great electric blues player. He just stretched it out. He had more chords, he just didn't stick to the three chord thing, but his playing was all blues. He had so much feeling and he expanded it with electronics. To me Jimi could play the blues as well as anyone in the world when he wanted to."

And Michael Bloomfield said, "Jimi was the blackest guitarist I ever heard. His playing was rooted in pre-blues, like field hollers and gospel melodies. But what really did it to him was early Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. He knew that stuff backwards - he was an unparalleled blues guitarist."

I'm absolutely lovin' the all-instrumental tracks of Born Under a Bad Sign and Jam 292.

Needless to say, I am duly inspired!

Effects Pedals

2011-08-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

For the past three years or so I've been on an obsessive search for overdrive/distortion effects pedals that best suit the type of music I play and the kind of tone I want when I play it.

Living in an out-of-the-way area of Northern Arizona has made this search difficult, as I do not have the luxury of being near a major guitar store where I could sample several pedals at a time. Rather, I've had to rely on video clips on the internet and reviews and opinions on various guitar-related forums to find pedals that might do the job for me. Then, it's ordering them one at a time, returning or re-selling the rejects, always after trying them out in live gigs to make sure I know what they can or cannot do in a full band setting.

All of which has taken time.

But I believe I have finally arrived at my own tone nirvana, pedal-wise. Here's what I now have on my pedal board, hopefully for the forseeable future and beyond:

*Dunlop Crybaby Classic - don't want to overuse a wah pedal but this one sounds great when I need it.

* Boss DS-1 Distortion -one of the granddaddies of good, old fashioned distortion.

* Boss OD-3 Overdrive - an overlooked but versatile overdrive pedal in the Boss line, which I use mostly for leads that need a medium overdrive.

* Proco Rat2 Distortion - another classic, for when I need to get downright nasty!

I'm very happy with my overall set-up and I think the pedals add texture and variety for my playing the blues. pretty simple set-up, really, but all that I need.

The Three Kings

2011-07-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

You just can't be into the blues without lovin' the three Kings - Freddie, Albert and B.B.

And what a pleasant surprise to see (and listen to) a new album by Jeff Golub paying tribute to these blues masters, titled The Three Kings.

Golub is a superb jazz guitarist with one foot firmly in the blues. (You have to love a jazzer who plays a '65 Strat!) I've followed him for years, always enjoying his tasteful musicianship. In this new CD he plays and sings songs by each of the Kings along with a few other tunes written by Golub and others that honor the legends.

I especially like his all-instrumental version of B.B. King's classic The Thrill Is Gone, using his guitar to mimic both B.B.'s lyrics and licks.

And it sure doesn't hurt to have Robben Ford and Sonny Landreth guest on a couple of the tracks.

All in all, a really good pure blues album!

Guitar Shops

2011-06-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

One of the things I miss about Southern California is the guitar shops. I used to spend much of my free time browsing a seemingly endless list of guitar shops in and around Los Angeles. As I wrote in a previous post, I love used gear and the guitar shops there offered an incredible selection of electric and acoustic guitars and amplifiers, some used, some abused, all with their own personality.

Among my favorites were Voltage Guitars in Hollywood, where I bought my '82 Stratocaster; Truetone Music is Santa Monica, whose owners and employees are friendly and knowledgable; Norm's Rare Guitars in the San Fernando Valley, whose selection of true vintage instruments is amazing; and, of course, the grandaddy of them all, McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica.

McCabe's has been in business for over 50 years and is the ultimate "candy shop" for a guitar player, especially acoustic. Every inch of the place is filled with guitars and guitar-related merchandise. There's a full service tech shop right in the middle of the first floor and a maze of rehearsal and teaching rooms upstairs. They even roll things aside and host live music in the back room.

I learned to play the blues at McCabe's, under the tutelage of Fran Banish. I took lessons from Fran religiously every other week for over two years. Can't begin to tell you how much I looked forward to that 60 minutes, always padded on either side with a good browsing session downstairs in the showroom.

Here, in Northern Arizona, guitar shops are few and far between. But I make do with what is here. I should get a bumper sticker that reads: I Brake for Guitar Shops!

The Rhythm Room

2011-06-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

As previously posted, Blues Dawg had the pleasure - and I do mean pleasure - of performing at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix last weekend. What a great gig!

The Rhythm Room is the perfect blues bar/club. It's only open for performances, which are mostly blues bands, both local and national. Everybody who's anybody in the past and present blues hierarchy has played the Rhythm Room.

We were the opening act on a Saturday night. And we were treated like we were the headliners, from load-in to load-out. Owner and bluesman Bob Corritore wasn't there that night, but manager Mona and sound man George took good care of us, making sure we had everything we needed to look and sound good on stage. A wide but not too deep stage - a great sound system and board.

And we played our asses off! Five of us rocked for an hour and forty-five minutes. I haven't had so much fun since the first time I played B.B. King's Blues Club in LA.

Looks like we'll be booking another gig at the Rhythm Room sometime this summer.

Blues Dawg at the Rhythm Room

2011-05-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

Throughout the country, there are a handful of legendary blues clubs, venues where the blues has been played over the years by some of the best that ever played the blues. On this list, representing the Southwest area of the country, is the Rhythm Room in Phoenix.

For the past 15 years plus, owner Bob Corritore has been hosting the very best of nationally touring blues acts as well as supporting local musicians. Corritore, himself an internationally acclaimed harmonica player with tons of awards and numerous cd's to his credit, has created and continues to manage a very special blues venue.

I'm thrilled to tell you that Blues Dawg will perform its first-ever gig at the Rhythm Room on Saturday, May 28. We'll be on from 6 to 8 pm, opening for the Bad News Blues Band. We are looking forward to having a great time!

The Rhythm Room is located at 1019 E. Indian School Road in Phoenix. Phone number is (602) 265-4842. Doors open at 5 pm with a $5 cover charge.

Hope to see you there!

Bob Dylan Show

2011-05-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan and I have the same birthday - May 24. Not the same astrological chart (don't I wish!), just the same day, seven years apart (he's older than me!).

So for the past six years, since 2006, I've hosted a local Bob Dylan Birthday Party & Concert. What started out as a hootenany-type musical event in my bookstore, with a handful of local musicians, including myself, singing and performing Dylan songs, has grown every year to what has become a local "cult" event.

I moved the venue from my bookstore to the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood in 2009. It seats 140+ and we've sold out every year. This year's show is on Saturday, May 21 at 7:00 pm. May 24 is a Tuesday and it's hard getting folks to come out mid-week.

Me and my backing band - the Mystery Tramps - will perform by ourselves as well as backing several other performers in the course of the night. Still others will perform solo. All Dylan, all night.

This year, the Mystery Tramps are me, Debra Windsong, Dan Bresnan, Alexander McFee, Hutch Hutchinson and Robert Church. Performers are Tyler Barrett, Brandon Decker, William Eaton, Dan Engler, Gary Every, Gregg Gould, Vyktoria Pratt Keating, Chris Seymour and Don Whitcher.

The show goes for about three hours - two sets with a break in the middle. One of the highlights every year is that we end the first set with an audience-participation rendition of Desolation Row, with several members of the audience coming up on stage to each sing a verse. And, we always end the show with Blowin' in the Wind and then rock out to Like a Rolling Stone.

Great fun and pretty damn good music, too!

Blues Dawg Update

2011-04-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

We recently made some personnel changes to Blues Dawg, all good!

Keys Marsh, who has been playing with us off and on for the past couple of years is now an official member of the band. Keys has a great "blues" feel to his playing and always spices up his performances at just the right moment.

And, Robert Church will be taking over as drummer. Robert has been playing with us at our monthly blues jam and has fit in very well with the Blues Dawg style of blues. He is a very dynamic drummer and is always the crowd pleaser.

Welcome Keys and Robert!

Blues Fest a Success!

2011-04-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at producing a blues festival went pretty well. The 1st Annual Old Town Blues Fest was held last Saturday, April 2, at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, Arizona.

American roots and slide impresario, Don Whitcher, performed three great 30-minute sets on our outdoor stage, alternating with a couple of in-theater performances by Big Daddy D & the Dynamites and my band, Blues Dawg.

I invited Freddie Cisneros to play with us and it was a real treat to share the stage with him. Freddie learned and earned his blues chops in Texas and is one of the best and intuitive blues guitar players I've had the pleasure to play with.

Our evening headliners were the solo act of Hans Olson, who can do more with a guitar and harmonica than anyone else out there, and the duo of Dave Riley (guitar) and Bob Corritore (harmonica). Bob is from Chicago and it shows - pure, unadulterated blues harp, tasty, emotional and entertaining.

The highlight of the whole day, however, was the jam session that followed the headliners. Just about everyone who played at the festival joined in a really cool jam. Pretty exciting to rub shoulders and trade licks with Hans and Bob, two Arizona Blues Hall of Famer's!

A Wall of Sound

2011-03-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

Not many guitar players can pull-off a 4-set gig with just bass and drums behind them. Hendrix and Clapton (Cream) come to mind, but these guys are two of the best that ever picked up a guitar. Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughan often performed with just Double Trouble behind him, but just as often he'd have a keyboard player sitting in as well.

And, yes, I can and have fronted a bar gig as a trio. I don't care who you are or how good a player you are, it's not easy to have something creative and different to say musically for 30 to 40 songs, not without boring your audience because too many of the songs start sounding the same somewhere in the third set.

I love playing with other musicians - guitar, harmonica, sax, keyboard, whatever. As I've posted here before, Blues Dawg is a core of me, my bass player and my drummer. But for virtually every gig we play, I invite one or two other players to sit in. I have a better time and I know the audience does too.

I was reminded of this when I got my new CD - Buried Alive in the Blues - last week and had a chance to really listen to it. We recorded live with seven players on stage - me, a lead guitarist, a slide guitarist, sax player, keyboard player, bass and drums. What a great, full sound we produced. No one player had any pressure to "fill up the spaces" and yet everyone contributed just the right amount to the mix. The CD has nine tracks and no two tracks sound at all alike.

Great texture, and pretty damn good blues!

My New CD

2011-03-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty excited about my new CD being released next week. It's the first CD I've done since moving to Arizona over six years ago.

It's called Buried Alive in the Blues and features nine tracks that were recorded live at my annual Holiday Blues Revue back in December. In addition to me on guitar and singing the lead vocals, I'm joined by the Blues Dawg core rhythm section of Hutch Hutchinson on bass and Ed Tortorello on drums - plus Keys Marsh on keyboard, Duane Ewing on sax, Dan Bresnan on lead guitar and Don Whitcher on slide guitar.

It was recorded at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood, Arizona by Scott Beck and mastered by Gregg Tauriello. Overall, it's a pretty good recording (no studio overdubs) of blues covers and a couple of my originals, all definitely with the great Blues Dawg sound.

Dave Hunter's Books

2011-02-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dave Hunter is an American musician and journalist who has worked in both Great Britain and the United States. More importantly, at least to me, is he is the author of some truly exceptional books about guitars and related gear. I own five of them, have read them numerous times and use them all as reference books for all things related to the gear I use.

-- The Electric Guitar Sourcebook: How to Find the Sounds You Like

--The Guitar pick-Up Handbook: The Start of Your Sound

--Guitar Effects Pedals: The Practical Handbook

--The Guitar Amp Handbook: Understanding Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds

--Guitar Rigs: Classic Guitar and Amp Sounds

In addition to comprehensive and useful information about the subjects of each of the books, they all contain, as an added bonus, an audio cd that has examples of many things discussed in the books.

Highly recommended for the electric guitar player at all levels of experience. Hunter won't make you a better player - you have to do that yourself - but he will give you more than enough information to help you find your "tone," thereby giving you more confidence in playing.

Not Just Any Telecaster, But My Telecaster

2011-01-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've always liked Fender guitars over other brands. I like the single-coil tone, I like the scale length, I like the solid wood bodies, I like the overall designs. Early on I played mostly Stratocasters, one of the most beautifully designed guitars ever made, a design that somewhat set the standard for many that followed, a design that has been virtually unchanged since 1954.

But in 1998 I walked into a guitar shop in Santa Monica and fell in love with a used Telecaster hanging on the wall. The Telecaster design precedes the Strat by a few years and is simplicity itself. A plank of wood, comfortable to hold and cut for easy access to the upper frets; an understated but distinctive headstock; two pickups, two knobs and a selector switch. I bought it on the spot, though, not because I was now in love with Telecasters in general, but because this one spoke to me.

It turned out to be a "partscaster" - a 1991 '52-Reissue butterscotch blonde ash body, with a very flat (12" radius) 1983 neck with a rosewood fretboard and vintage pickups. It had a really ugly purple-pearloid pickguard, that I quickly replaced with tortoise shell, along with the pickups. I tried several different pickups until finding the wonderful tone of my present Rio Grande Dirty Harry's.

It took me several years to really bond with this guitar - Teles are unforgiving - but it is now my main guitar and I gig with it almost exclusively.

My point is that I really love this particular guitar. I like other Teles, too, just as I like Strats. But my guitar-playing self image is not that of a Tele player per se but of THIS particular Tele.

Old Town Blues Fest

2011-01-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

In collaboration with William Eaton of the Old Town Center for the Arts, I am excited to announce the first annual Old Town Blues Fest, to be held all day Saturday, April 2, at the Old Town Center for the Arts in Cottonwood.

This blues festival is the natural extension of the blues events I’ve been organizing and performing here in the Verde Valley over the past few years. William Eaton and I are bringing three nationally and regionally prominent blues musicians to our inaugural event.

Hans Olson and the duo of Bob Corritore and Dave Riley will headline the festival. In addition, there will be performances by local slide and lap steel guitar impresario Don Whitcher; Big Daddy D & the Dynamites, winners of the 2007 Arizona Blues Shootout; and, Joe Neri & Blues Dawg, who will be joined by famed Texas and Prescott, Arizona guitarist, Freddie Cisneros.

The Old Town Blues Fest will be inside and outside, on the Old Town Center for the Arts property and will kick off at 1:00 pm and go all day and through the evening. Ticket information will be available soon at www.oldtowncenter.org.

Stung by the Gods

2010-12-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

Back in the '90's, I had the great pleasure of taking guitar lessons from Fran Banish at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California. Fran was not only a great teacher, he was, and still is, one of the best and most versatile guitar players in the LA area. In addition to playing with the likes of Keb Mo' and others, and doing various session work, he also played out a lot. At that time, he had a blues band called Stung by the Gods.

What a great name for a blues band!

And, that's exactly the way I feel about playing the blues - like I've been stung by the blues gods with a feeling that is in me,that's a part of me, that in part defines who I am.

People who know me well tell me that when I'm on stage, I'm a different person than when I'm not. And, it's not my ego saying "Hey, look at me up here on the stage!" It's just a special feeling that comes over me when I'm performing the blues, hard to describe in words. But, I'm glad that the way I feel inside is coming through to the audience.

Another blues player once told me "It's an honor to play this music." And it is, given the dark period of American history, i.e., slavery, that it came from. I'm just thankful that the blues has evolved and survived for these many, many years so that it can be a part of my life today.

Songwriting

2010-11-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

There have to be far too many blues songs to count, and yet, despite the structure most of them share (i.e., 8-bars, 12-bars, 16-bars, etc.), most songs are unique, not just with respect to their lyrics, but the "vibe" of the song.

Variations include major vs. minor keys, slow, medium or fast tempo, rhythmic structures (shuffle vs. straight, etc.), turnarounds, chord substitutions, melody, inclusion or not of bridges, choruses and other structures, intros, endings and a whole lot more.

Even just within the 12-bar structure, which is probably the most common type of blues song, there are endless possibilities. The standard lyrical structure of this kind of song is to have three lines per verse, with the second line repeating the first line and the third line resolving the subject of the verse. But first and second lines don't have to be exact; sometimes a slight variation from one to the next can really change the way a song is heard.

I love to write blues songs. I'm not prolific but I'm also proud of the fact that the majority of my original songs are really good, that is, when I play them live, my audiences seem to respond very positively to them.

And, my objective in writing a song is not just to create something around a lyrical or musical idea, but also to do so with that ultimate audience in mind. I don't want my audiences to be bored. I don't want them to have to sit and listen to song after song that sound the same.

And as I performer, I want the same for myself and my band mates.

Buddy Guy - Living Proof

2010-11-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

I just finished listening to Buddy Guy's newest cd - "Living Proof." For all you BG fans out there, this autobiographical set of all new songs is his best ever! The subtitle (and first track) of the album is "74 Years Young" and Buddy definitely makes the point that he might be getting up there in years but by no means is he done.

"74 Years Young" is a mid-tempo blues for a couple of verses - then Buddy lets it loose - absolutely blistering guitar! And there are no clunkers - all the tracks are great if not better than great. There's also a really nice gospel blues duet with B.B. King called "Stay Around a Little Longer" and one with Carlos Santana called "Where the Blues Begins."

And, to add to your listening pleasure, David Grissom on guitar and Reese Wynans on keyboard play on every track.

Last track called "Skanky" is an instrumental and is classic Buddy Guy.

One nice feature...the liner notes tell us what guitar Buddy's playing on each track, including his legendary polka dot Strat, a '57 Strat, a Gibson Custom E-335, a Martin BG Signature Electric/Acoustic and a '74 Tele Deluxe.

This cd is my new all-time favorite!

New vs. Old/Used/Vintage Gear

2010-10-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've only purchased two brand new guitars in my life - all my other guitars have been used when I got them.

One of the best things about living in Southern California was all of the used guitar shops. I used to spend a lot of my free time going from one store to another, playing all kinds of electric guitars, some truly vintage but most just well played, well cared for, used instruments.

After owning tens of guitars and after playing literally hundreds of them, I've concluded that older guitars, especially ones that have been played regularly, sound better than new guitars. I think it's a combination of the aging process of the wood, both body and neck, of the electronics, of every individual part of the instrument coming together, settling in and making the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

Not every guitar ages well, but most sound better after 10 or more years than they did when new. And a few of them develop that elusive and much sought after "mojo."

My '82 Strat is not considered "vintage" by guitar collectors, but it is to me. It was the first guitar I played that had mojo - everything about it just seemed right, from the physical to the musical.

Brand new guitars seem "stiff" to me, they make you work harder to play them. I guess guitars, like many things, need to be broken in before they can excel.

The Blues Dawg "Sound"

2010-10-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

I've gigged extensively as Blues Dawg, both in Southern California and Northern Arizona, with many personnel changes. Several bass players and drummers, sometimes replacements, sometimes just filling in for a gig. Guitar players, harmonica players, keyboard players, horn players - in all possible combinations.

What has been consistent, however, in all of these line-ups has been the sound coming from the stage that the audience hears. I'm not saying that a guitar sounds like a harmonica sounds like a piano. I'm talking about the full sound of a live band. And what I've been told time after time is that Blues Dawg has a distinctive sound, as a band and regardless of the individual players on any given night.

Well, the only consistency of all of my gigs has been me - it's always been me plus a few other players. So, without analyzing this to death, it struck me that I have a certain way of playing that I think adds that consistency to every gig. I'm not talking about my solos, but rather what I do when I'm singing - I play chords. I don't fill up all of the space but I do fill up some of it. Most guitar bands do not do this - they punctuate the spaces between lines and solos with licks and partial chords. I play full, 3-note or more, chords, while I'm singing as well as while other musicians are soloing.

To prove my point, I recently sat in with a pick-up band for a local charity. Just played guitar, mostly rhythm with a few short solos. After the gig, some of the locals came up to me to tell me how good my band sounded, with the assumption that any band I might be playing with had to be Blues Dawg. They equated the sound of that band that night with Blues Dawg.

I'm not saying that Blues Dawg is better than any other band. Just pointing out that we have a "sound" and that sound is good as well as intentional.

My Blues Jam

2010-09-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I've wanted to be able to go to a bar, club or other music venue and just jam for a few hours with fellow musicians. Blues preferred but not required. Just a low-stress, non-performance time and place to have the advantages of playing with a live band while also having the freedom to try out new material or maybe just dust off some old stuff.

Most of what's available in the Sedona/Verde Valley area are open mic's, which serve a purpose but not exactly what I wanted. Open mic's allow you to play a couple of songs, maybe with or maybe without a backing band, then you get off the stage and give the next guy in line a chance to do the same.

There is one jam session in town that happens every week at a popular bar. Unfortunately, the guy running it doesn't have much control over his own stage, so the jam usually degenerates into a heavy-metal-amps-on-eleven fiasco, which drives both musicians and audiences out the door.

So I took it upon myself to give me, and other musicians, what I wanted. I approached a bar owner with the idea of a monthly blues jam. We had worked together before and she loved the idea - attract some of the best musicians in the area to come by once a month from 7 to 10 pm and just jam on the blues. If I could attract some top talent to play, then the audience would follow, making it a win-win-win-win situation for me, my fellow musicians, the bar owner and the local blues fans.

I went a step further and got the endorsement of the Phoenix Blues Society, the only blues organization in Arizona, so that my monthly blues jam is an official PBS event.

So far, three months into it, it's a resounding success. Between 12 and 15 musicians show up each month to play the blues - guitar, harmonica, sax, bass, drums and more. The music is great and the audiences are large and appreciative.

Come on out - every third Thursday of the month at the 1012 Lounge in Clarkdale. See my web site for all the details.

The Real Deal - Not!

2010-09-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

In addition to playing the blues with my own band, Blues Dawg, I also like to go out now and then to see some local bands play. I'm not a blues snob or purist, but I do get annoyed when a band bills itself as a blues band but then actually performs an array of genres from country to rockabilly to classic rock, with only a few legitimate blues songs thrown into the set list.

I also don't like when they play a blues song and the guitar solos are filled with rock and even heavy metal riffs, which mostly obscure the blues nature of the song and very often are played just to show how many notes per second the guitar player can play.

If you're going to play the blues, then play the blues. There's plenty of room to be innovative and creative, and there are even an infinite number of licks withing the "pentatonic box," but the blues isn't the blues if most or all of what you play within a song belongs in another song entirely.

Buddy Guy is a good example of what I'm talking about. He's aggressive and creative and all over the fretboard, but it's always blues. The only times I've heard him play SRV or Clapton of Hendrix licks are when he's making the point that those guys stole their licks from him.

I recently sat in with a local band based on their claims of being a pure blues band. In fact, they invited me to play with them in the first place based on my own local reputation as a "blues man." Well, a couple of hours later and we had played everything but the blues, as far as I'm concerned. But, they thought they were doing it right, if you consider "right" anything that happens to have the 12-bar structure of the blues, when in fact most of their songs were blues-based pop, rock and country, and sounded like it.

Nothing wrong with any kind of music, no matter what you call it, as long as it's played well.

But I love to play the blues, just the blues.

My Amps

2010-08-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

My pride and joy is my Bassman amplifier.

Fender began the Bassman product line in the early '50's and it was intended to be an amplifier for electric bass guitars, which aslo began about the same time. But by the mid to late '50's guitar players had taken over the amp, so to speak, when they heard what a Strat of Tele sounded like through this amazing and legendary amplifier.

My amp is a '70 (silverface) Bassman head that some guy in Texas custom built into a 2x10 cabinet, similar to but slightly larger than a Deluxe Reverb cabinet. I picked it up on Ebay years ago, replaced the speakers with Celestion Vintage 30's and have been in tone heaven ever since.

Rated at 45 watts, this amp can be loud when necessary but always delivers a classic, warm Fender sound. Current pre-amp tubes are 2 Mullard (reissue) 12AX7's. Power tubes are 2 JJ 6L6's. It's great for small club gigs as well as outdoor stages. It's pretty clean until the volume is cranked to at least 7 or 8, but I mostly play it at 4 or 5.

My backup amp is a late '90's Peavey Delta Blues. It has a 15-inch Blue Marvel speaker and is rated at 30 watts, powered by 4 JJ EL84's. Pre-amp tubes include 2 Raytheon Blackplate NOS 5751's and 2 Raytheon Blackplate 12AX7's. It has reverb and an overdrive channel, which I almost never use, but it does have a different and more "chimey" tone than a Fender amp.

For acoustic work, I use a 15-watt solid-state Crate Cimarron. It has two channels, so I can run my guitar through one and my vocal mic through the other. It also has 3-band EQ and spring reverb, so I can get some really warm and full tones out of it.

My "Smith" Stratocaster

2010-08-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

This guitar has a lot of history, both individually and generally.

Leo Fender sold his company to CBS back in 1965 and Fender guitars slowly deteriorated in quality as the CBS "bean counters" looked for ways to reduce the costs of manufacturing them, with quality probably hitting a low during the 1970's. In the early 1980's, CBS decided to hire back some of the old Fender personnel who were responsible for the pre-CBS success of the company.

One of the most effective of these was Dan Smith. He re-designed the product line, getting Strats and Teles back to their basic designs of the past. In late 1981, the new Stratocaster, based on the old pre-CBS models, was put into production, with the first of these being sold in 1982.

The 1982 Fender Stratocaster became known as the "Smith" Strat and was the prototype for what eventually became the American Standard Stratocaster, formally introduced in 1987.

About ten years ago, I was browsing in Voltage Guitars in Hollywood, California and picked up a well-worn, faded white Stratocaster. It must have once been owned by a left-hander, as there were plugged-up strap holder holes on the horns. Overall, it looked like it had been well cared for and played a lot.

I took it back into the demo room and played that guitar for a couple of hours. I loved it, on more than just a musical level. It just seemed to bond with me and me with it. Tone-wise, it wasn't too good. The strings were rusted and the original pickups were pretty flat.

Needless to say, I bought the guitar. Changed the pickups and the strings and it's been with me on almost every gig ever since. It has a nicely aged white (looks pale yellow in certain light), highly contoured body with a 7 1/4-inch radius solid maple neck. All original except the pickups, which are Van Zandt Vintage Plus in all three positions.

More than a guitar, a musical relationship that responds to what I'm thinking before I even tell my fingers what to do. A great guitar.

My Tele "Partscaster"

2010-08-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

My Telecaster is a mutt, a mongrel, or in guitar parlance what's known as a "partscaster," because it's made up of various components from other guitars, etc. In other words, although it technically is a Fender Telecaster, my particular guitar never rolled off the Fender assembly line as is.

I love this guitar - it's my #1 gigging axe. I bought it in the late '90's from a now defunct music store in Santa Monica, California - Ace Music. It came with a 1991 '52 Reissue butterscotch blonde, swamp ash body and a 1983 maple neck with a 12"-radius rosewood fretboard. It had original '52 Reissue pickups and a really ugly purple pearloid pickguard.

Today, the pickups are Rio Grande Dirty Harry's and the pickguard is an almost solid-color tortoise-shell plastic.

The 12"-radius neck is fairly rare for an old Fender guitar. Until Fender recently started making them again, I believe 1983 was the only year they made a 12"-radius neck. Vintage Fender guitars typically have a 7 1/4-inch radius and the modern standard is 9 1/2-inches. The greater the radius, the flatter the neck is, making speed and string-bending easier.

The Dirty Harry pickups, in both the neck and bridge positions, are kind of a cross between that classic Telecaster twang and the sound of a P-90. They have a very distinct sound, a bit darker and a bit higher output than most Telecaster pickups.

All of my guitars (3 electrics) are work horses, because I'm a player not a collector. I believe a guitar should be played, not sit in a case under the bed or in a closet. I believe a guitar plays and sounds better the more it's played and the more it ages. I don't like new guitars; they just seem to lack that certain "mojo" that an old guitar has.

I've gone through a lot of guitars over the years and have whittled them down to three. My Telecaster is my #1. I'll tell you about the others in the next two blogs.

Acoustic vs. Electric

2010-08-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

I love all blues, both acoustic and electric. But I mostly play electric. Before I go on to blog about my guitars and such, I thought I'd stop and post a little discussion about acoustic versus electric music.

Acoustic, to me, means not amplified. When I was in my early teens, there were lots of "acoustic" coffee houses on the East Coast, where you could go and listen to completely un-amplified folk music and blues. There might be a microphone for vocals, but all the music coming from guitars, harmonicas, etc. was totally un-amplified. The sound of the guitar was the sound of the guitar. There wasn't anything between the guitar's sound hole and your ear.

Acoustic guitars are different from electric guitars. Although they can be amplified, they are built so you can still make music that folks can hear sitting more than a couple of feet away. Electric guitars cannot easily be heard unless they are plugged in.

Today, though, most so-called "acoustic" performances actually involve some manner of amplification. Many acoustic guitars have electronic pickups built in under the saddle, and some even have on-board pre-amps and equalizers, too. And these various pickups are plugged directly into a pa system or into an amplifier, especially configured for acoustic guitars.

And, some players further filter their sound by going through all manner of sound processors, so that as pleasing as the end result may be tonewise, it may not sound anything like the completely acoustic, un-amplified sound of the guitar all by itself. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.

Electric guitars make little sound by themselves and need to be plugged in to really function as they were intended.

It takes slightly different skills to play acoustic versus electric guitars. Acoustic guitars usually require heavier gauge strings in order to better create their un-amplified sound. Heavier strings require higher action and other variables that in turn require a slightly different playing technique from electric guitars. For example, you can't bend strings as efficiently on an acoustic guitar as on an electric guitar.

Both are good and wonderful, just different as to playing the blues. I can and do play acoustic guitar, but I prefer and am much better on electric guitar. There is no official or best "blues" guitar - any acoustic guitar and any electric guitar can sound good if the player can play the blues.

My acoustic guitar is a 1998 Gibson CL-20. I use a Dean Markley ProMag Plus sound hole pickup plugged into a Crate Cimarron (15 watt) amplifier. The guitar sounds pretty good unplugged, but is much fuller (and of course, louder) through the amp.

Tone!

2010-07-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

Every guitar player I've ever known, myself included, has been and is on a lifelong quest for the holy grail - getting that perfect guitar tone they've been hearing in their heads for the past 3 or 4 or even 5 decades to come out of their amplifiers.

The funny thing is that the guitar gods of the Fifties and Sixties weren't all that particular about the kind of gear they played. They pretty much played whatever they could afford and whatever was available. Back then "vintage" gear wasn't vintage yet. Rather it was evolving as the musicians began to embrace new technologies offered by the likes of Fender, Gibson and others. Our quest for that early Peter Green or Eric Clapton tone is somewhat complicated by the fact that technology has evolved beyond the simplicity of plugging a Les Paul into a Marshall stack.

I once heard an interesting story about Clapton touring Japan. Apparently, his guitars never made it to one of the stadium venues, so he just played a cheap Squier Strat ( a low-end Fender guitar made in Korea). What makes the story interesting is that nobody could hear the difference - he still sounded exactly like Eric Clapton. Which lends a lot of credence to the claim that a great deal of your tone is you, in your fingers, no matter what you're playing.

Today, guitar tone is actually a fairly complicated combination of guitars, pickups, effects pedals and amplifiers. The kind of guitar (Stratocaster, Telecaster, Les Paul, etc.), the kind of wood used for the body, neck and fretboard, the electronics (pickups, pots, etc.) and strings all affect tone. Not to mention the seemingly limitless varieties of effects pedals, amplifiers, tubes, cords, picks and more.

I'll discuss my gear in future posts, but I have indeed managed to get that sound in my head to come out of my amplifier, and after all is said and done, it's really quite simple. A certain Stratocaster plugged directly into my Bassman amp. Everything else, and there's a lot of it, is just window dressing and variations on a theme, the theme of my perfect tone.

The Thrill Is Gone

2010-07-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

Another of my most favorite blues songs is a classic - THE THRILL IS GONE by B.B. King.

Originally written by Rick Darnell and Roy Hawkins in 1951, and recorded by Hawkins in that same year, THE THRILL IS GONE is the definitive and signature song of B.B. King.

King recorded it in December 1969. According to his autobiography, "Blues All Around Me," Kings says that after all the tracks were recorded he got a call from his manager that night suggesting that strings (violins, etc.) be added to the mix. A strange idea for a blues song, but King agreed and the string track was added, giving THE THRILL IS GONE its distinctive sound. Of course, the bass progression is pretty cool, too!

The song reached #3 on the Billboard charts in 1970 and was largely responsible for King winning a Grammy Award for best R&B performer of the year. To this day, it was and is King's biggest hit. And, at the time of the original recording helped him bridge the gap from "race music" to airplay on white radio stations.

It's been covered by many other musicians. My favorite is by Luther Allison, who pays homage to King with his guitar playing but adds his own patented passion and emotion to the song. I also like Willie Nelson's version, which in classic Willie fashion is sung slightly behind the beat.

I'm proud to have sung THE THRILL IS GONE during Blues Dawg's first performance at B.B. King's Blues Club in Universal City in Southern California in 2002. And even prouder that I pulled it off - we did a really good rendition of the song at one of the great blues venues (now closed). Yes, it is intimidating to sing any B.B. King song in B.B. King's Blues Club, let alone his signature song!

Fortunately, we had the good sense to record our performance that night and released our second album - LIVE AT B.B. KING'S - shortly thereafter. The song is now available on one of my compilation cd's - LIVE DAWG.

Playin' Live

2010-07-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ain't nothing better than being on stage and playing for an audience, at least for me.

It's really not an ego thing - "Hey, look at me!" - it's more of a connection between me and my band mates, between the band and the audience, between me and the audience. Hard to describe in words, but when it's there, everybody knows it. Some call it being in a groove. I don't have a name for it but I sure know when I'm in it.

But playing live is more than that. Most folks don't realize that playing a 3-4 hour gig really requires 6-7 hours for the band. We have to get to the venue early to set up our gear, adjust it for the particular venue and do a sound check. I love setting up almost as much as performing. Every venue is different, could be inside or outside, all kinds of variables that require minor or major adjustments of the microphones, the pa system, my guitars, pedals and/or amps. It's just fun to tweak things in search of that perfect tone.

And, at the end of the gig, the band has to knock everything down and load it out. Not as much fun as setting up, but still enjoyable. If the performance went well, there's a buzz, a natural high that doesn't begin to subside until I've packed up all my gear in my car and am driving home.

But the performance itself is and must be the main event. I love designing a set list that will truly entertain my audience. I mix it up, not only with my song selection, but the use of different keys and different tempos and different arrangements. I don't think the audience is that aware of all these variables. They just know entertaining vs. boring.

I once went to a blues club in Los Angeles to see some guys I knew play some blues. Every song was in the same key, had the same tempo and had the same arrangement - intro, two verses, harmonica solo, guitar solo, keyboard solo, last verse. Every song, every set. Boring as hell.

The greatest compliment a band can get is seeing folks getting up to dance to your music, or at least smiling and stomping their feet from their seats. The bottom line is - it's supposed to be fun, for the audience and for the band!

Blues Dawg

2010-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Blues Dawg is my band. It was born in Los Angeles in 1998, initially consisting of two guitars, harmonica, bass and drums. During its first two years of existence, there were numerous personnel changes, mainly for bass and drums, and the harmonica position faded in and out, but mostly out. But through 2004, Blues Dawg was a major blues band in the enormous ocean of musicians and bands that is Los Angeles. We gigged extensively throughout Southern California and recorded 5 albums - 2 studio and 3 live.

I moved to Northern Arizona in early 2005 and reformed Blues Dawg later that year. But rather than have a roster of fixed personnel, which is hard to do since band members tend to have other things in their lives besides playing the blues, like families and jobs, I decided that as long as I had a bass player and drummer behind me, Blues Dawg could and would be anything it needed to be for any particular gig.

So, nearly five years later, that arrangement has worked very nicely. Rarely do we gig as just a trio. More commonly, I have a list of other players that I ask to sit in, depending on the gig and the venue - guitar players, harmonica players, keyboard players, horn players, etc. We usually take the stage with 4, sometimes 5, players, but I've had as many as 9 musicians on stage at the same time.

What's interesting is that the sound - what the audience is hearing - is pretty much the same, regardless of who is on stage at the moment. I'm not saying a keyboard sounds the same as a harmonica sounds the same as a sax. I'm just observing that there is the constant of me, my bass player and my drummer, the basic sound of Blues Dawg, from gig to gig. And that sound is pretty consistent. Not boring by any means, just consistent. That's important for building and maintaining a fan base , which I think I've done quite well here in the Sedona/Verde Valley area. When people come out to see us, they pretty much know what they'll be getting - basic, Chicago-style, in-your-face, foot-stompin' blues!

Buried Alive in the Blues

2010-07-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

My favorite blues song of all time is BURIED ALIVE IN THE BLUES, written by Nick Gravenites and recorded by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on their 1972 album, BETTER DAYS.

The song doesn't have a 12-bar blues structure, not even a traditional 8-bar structure, although the verse does have 8 bars - two repeated loops of 4 bars each over the same chord progression - A E D A (followed by two loops of a 4-bar bridge D E A A). But when you listen to it, there isn't any doubt that BURIED ALIVE IN THE BLUES is not only a song about the blues, it is the true essence of the blues.

BURIED ALIVE IN THE BLUES was the first song I ever recorded, for my very first demo tape back in the mid-90's when I was beginning to organize my band, Blues Dawg. I think I've performed it at almost every gig I've ever played, right up to the present time. Not only do I love singing and playing it, but the audience always seems to connect to it as well.

The song has a colorful history, too. It was originally written for Janis Joplin. The instrumental tracks were recorded in September of 1970, as part of her PEARL album. Joplin died on October 4, the day before she was scheduled to go into the studio and lay down the vocal track. PEARL was released in 1971, as Joplin's final work. BURIED ALIVE IN THE BLUES was included in the album, as an instrumental, a fitting musical obituary for a rock legend.

The Butterfield Band re-recorded it, with vocals a year later.

Influences

2010-07-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

There have been so many influences in what I like to listen to, and what I like to play and how I play it. Some of it, probably most, has been subliminal and subconscious. Since my early teens, I've been a student of the blues, listening to and absorbing almost everything that's out there.

But there are a couple of major and a couple of minor influences that I'd like to acknowledge.

First and foremost, B.B. King, the one and only "king of the blues." His single note melodies and finger vibrato are legendary. But mostly what I've learned from B.B. King is to leave spaces in my music, to allow it to breath by itself, to not feel like I have to fill every moment with notes and chords. I've learned to take my time, that anything worth expressing through a guitar is worth savoring and doing right. Don't rush, just let it flow.

And then there's Buddy Guy, probably the most versatile and amazing guitar player ever. It was Buddy Guy who Hendrix and Clapton and SRV tried to emulate. Buddy Guy taught me to be creative, to find my own musically expressive voice, to learn from and honor the old blues masters but to be my own unique self. His Grammy-winning album - DAMN RIGHT I'VE GOT THE BLUES - is an amazing textbook on how to play the blues, and the track - REMEMBERING STEVIE (in honor of Stevie Ray Vaughan) - is an incredible lesson on how to build a guitar solo.

Two other players worth mentioning here as influences are Luther Allison, who taught me to play with passion, not just when I'm in the mood but all the time, and Jimmy Vaughan, older brother of SRV and whom Stevie acknowledged was a far better guitar player, who taught me to play the song, that each member of the band should do his or her best to make the song sound as good as possible.

Chicago Blues

2010-07-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

I mostly play what is known as "Chicago Blues". Following World War II, lots of folks migrated from the agrarian South to the industrial North, for jobs and money. Many Blacks ended up in Chicago and started playing their music there, transforming it from acoustic guitar "Delta" blues to electric "Chicago" blues, in order to take advantage of the very active bar and nightclub scene there.

Muddy Waters is probably acknowledged to be the father of Chicago blues, although there were many others that contributed to its distinctive style. It's the style of blues that most people associate with live blues played in a bar. It's distinguished not only by the electric instruments played, but also by the types of instruments themselves - electric guitar, harmonica, piano (or keyboard), electric bass and drums. And, of course, strong vocals to sing the blues and cut through the volume of the backing band.

If you want to hear Chicago blues at its best, listen to HARD AGAIN by Muddy Waters.

My favorite Chicago blues band, though, is the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Looking back over my live band experience, the Butterfield band probably had the most influence on me, on what I was (and am) playing, and on the kind of "sound" I was going for with my band. In my mind, it doesn't get much better than their 1965 debut album - THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND.

And, in the same year, they (without Butterfield himself) backed Bob Dylan when Dylan went "electric" at the Newport Folk Festival. But, that's a whole topic by itself!

The Blues

2010-07-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

The blues - I don't really know how to define it. I just know it when I hear it and feel it when I play it. Yeah, I know most of the blues have a specific musical structure - a 3-line verse with 12 bars per verse, 3 chords and 5 notes of the blues/minor pentatonic scale. And the beat, that quarter-note, pulsating shuffle.

But that's like saying the Mona Lisa is a series of brush strokes with different colors and textures.

The blues is a feeling, a catharsis of all kinds of emotions - happy, sad and everything in between. It originated from the sins of slavery and has evolved into a unique American musical genre, eventually giving birth (as Muddy Waters would say) to rock 'n' roll.

I've been playing the blues since I bought my first acoustic guitar ( a Gibson L-1 made in 1913) in Greenwich Village when I was 14 years old. I mostly play electric now, but that hasn't changed the way I feel about the blues.

The blues is the texture of my soul.