Blues fans - Chicago Blues fans - Muddy Waters fans - Mckinley Morganfield fans - this is a must have guitar instructional.
But be aware there is slide guitar in the open tuning keys of G and E as well as slide guitar in standard tuning and even a little plain guitar in standard tuning.
Also there is thumb pick activity and hybrid picking going on - don't let that stop you however-
I was thrilled that I could play some of these licks- well approximate them at any rate and you probably will be too!
I use my flat pick and you can fake the finger picking aspects of it to some degree if you need to and I did! It helps to have a dedicated open tuned guitar, a slide, a chromatic tuner. A Ferrari for Xmas would be nice too!
Another thing is that even though your instructor is using an electric guitar you don't need an electric guitar to play these semi-country/city blues songs or to learn from the lesson.
An acoustic guitar should do nicely in fact it may be even better depending on its action.
There is a small amount of confusion as to which key you should be in for a couple of the songs later on but Bob Margolin clears that up for us fairly soon. There is something for everyone in that, as I say above, in addition to open tunings, he also used standard tuning in the keys of A and E much as Robert Johnson did on several of his songs and you can hear the influences common to both artists.
The first time I watched this lesson a couple of years ago,
I felt inadequate and was gnashing my teeth in frustration.
Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. – Teddy Roosevelt