In Guitar Pickups and Tone we get the rundown on Richards pilot model James Tyler Elite Strat. He says Robben Ford got the 1st one and he got the 2nd one. This guitar has some electronic mods to it such as a mid-boost attenuator and gets a real nice glassy R & B sound as well as Clapton/Page/Beck growl. Its pickups are H3 which means I think two single coils neck and mid and a humbucker style situation up by the bridge. This makes it more versatile. Well it sounds good anyway.
Lastly Richard shows us his pedals and this is generally, in my experience, and wrongly too, a rare thing for them to explain to us. I congratulate them on doing it here. He's got a RC Booster xotic effect unit slight overdrive to it leaving transparency. Add a Boss DD3 digital delay and you have his sound. There are three jam tracks. I have gotten a lot out of Richards Smiths lessons in the past. But you have to spend time with them and they don't hold your hand through the basics. He might mention the theory behind the basic concepts he uses but he expects us to cotton on to his meaning. My favorite learn guitar lesson by Richard Smith teaches Rhythm Guitar its more Jimmy Nolan (James Brown's guitarist) than Kenny G. It starts off perfectly for early beginners and offers something to grow with that you can use across all styles. Foundation and Empire! This particular Lesson offers plenty but is more smooth jazz and R & B than not. Still that double stop section is quite worthy across all styles.
When I say R & B I mean bands like Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire and so on. If that's your bag, and you have some some basic guitar theory under your fingers then you'll like this a lot. If you prefer Chicago style Blues or even fingerstyle country blues we have many excellent choices for all levels reviewed.
(Jazz) Effortless Blues Guitar ~ Richard Smith Page One | Page Two | Page Three
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. – Erma Bombeck