Weighing in at an hour and 15 minutes this is a heavy hitting combination of Mississippi Delta Blues players and country players from the south, bayou and southern Texas. Sighted as influences are Guitar luminaires like Muddy Waters, James Burton, Cajun players, Lonnie Mack, Jessie Edmond Davis, Roy Buchanan and more.
And you can bet your Oil Can Boyd baseball card that there will be fingerpicking or more likely hybrid picking. The lesson curtain rises on a performance piece with Jim and his band the Honky Tonk Gurus doing something that sounds like Freddie Kings' "I'm Going Down". But its not that at all and it cleverly cycles into something else entirely and has some moves you'll want to know. 5:00 into the lesson Jim tunes us up.
Our first example is an open string blues using a steady thumb technique resulting in a swamp sound that makes me want an order of Cajun blackened cat fish.
Here Jim is fingerpicking but don't let that put you off because Happy and the crew at Homespun have done us the courtesy of providing us with a pamphlet. I'll just reach over and open that sukka and see if the TAB actually matches up to the music at about 7:00 minutes into the disc.
Its interesting and thankfully simple but it doesn't match exactly but let me get situated before I make any rash judgements. 'Simple' is a real good place to start learning hybrid picking. I have to remark that the alignment of the TAB booklet and the actual tutorial itself could have been a lot better. There are easy places where it matches. Milk Cow Blues is announced and its labeled EX 5 but there is heck of a lot more picking in here that I have no clue where it is in the TAB. There are no video announcements like Ex 1, EX 2, and so on.
Next we get our first finger picking exercise like Pop Staples or John Fogerty might have played with Credence Clearwater Revival. Bayou Country or Bad Moon on the Rise. I love it! We are in standard tuning in the key of G and picking the G and D strings open while droning or pedaling the G note at the 3'd fret with our left hand thumb. Well kinda sorta anyway.
The right hand meanwhile uses a flat pick with the thumb and forefinger while the 3'd and 4th fingers pluck notes and other manageable finger hammer-ons and pull offs. This is an easy way to learn some very hip riffs at a relaxed pace. I like it anyway.
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