After dealing with various health issues during the past few years, the legendary B.B. King passed away last night at his home in Las Vegas. He was 89. I was lucky enough to have seen B.B. King live numerous times.…
Blog Archives
“Let Me Play The Blues For You”: The Guitar Genius Of B.B. King (1925 – 2015)
Tagged with: B.B King, Blues, blues guitar, Improvisation, T-Bone Walker
Posted in Blues, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Posted in Blues, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Work Song: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Cannonball Adderley Quintet/The Animals
As I continue to practice on my Chapman Stick guitar, I have a list of tunes that I am currently working on and a list of tunes that I plan to work on. One of the songs that just went…
Tagged with: Blues, Canonball Adderley, Elvin Bishop, Eric Burdon, Jazz, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Animals, Work Song
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Groove Is In The Heart: Charlie Hunter Video On The Importance of Rhythm
I’ve made no secret that I’m a big fan of Charlie Hunter. What he does is amazing and unique (please check out my previous post on Charlie Hunter here: https://roymusicusa.com/2014/08/22/bing-bing-bing-bing-the-awesome-guitar-of-charlie-hunter/). The video below is from Premier Guitar magazine during which…
Tagged with: Blues, Charlie Hunter, Groove, guitar, Time Feel
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jam Band, Jazz
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jam Band, Jazz
“Give Me A Ticket For An Aer-O-Plane”: Joe Cocker 1940 – 2014
For those of us who came of age in the late sixties – early seventies and for whom the music of those years made an indelible imprint on our souls, this has been a tough month. In the past several…
Tagged with: Blues, Gospel, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, Soul Music, Space Captain, Stax Records, The Letter
Posted in Classic Rock, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Posted in Classic Rock, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Stick Theory Continued: Another Chapman Stick Guitar Video
I thought I would post a new video of me performing on the Chapman Stick Guitar. Here I’m doing a couple of choruses of the blues standard “Nobody Knows You When Your Down And Out”. It’s a fun song to…
Tagged with: Blues, Chapman Stick, Chapman Stick Guitar, Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Posted in Blues, Chapman Stick
Posted in Blues, Chapman Stick
“Please, sir, I want some more.” . . Grant Green Part II
This is a continuation of my previous post about the great Grant Green. One of the points I made during that post is how Grant Green’s playing is an excellent source of coping lines (or if you prefer, licks), especially…
Tagged with: Blues, Grant Green, guitar, Improvisation, Jazz
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Posted in Blues, Improvisation, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Born To Be Blue: Grant Green (1935 – 1979)
The last couple of weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of Grant Green. There are three tunes in particular that I keep returning to. They are “Blues In Maude’s Flat”, “Cool Blues” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. As a…
Tagged with: Blue Note Records, Blues, Grant Green, Jazz, jazz guitar
Posted in Blues, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Posted in Blues, Jazz, Music Appreciation and Analysis
Live-Evil: Miles Davis Deconstructes The Blues on Sivad/Honky Tonk (1970)
Sort of continuing the Miles Davis theme from my previous post, I want to discuss one specific piece of Miles from the early seventies: “Honky Tonk” (a studio recording on the album “Get Up With It”) or “Sivad” (as the…
“Let Me Play The Blues For You”: A Unified Field Theory For Playing The Blues?
Not that long ago, I was giving an off the cuff lesson to a friend who asked about blues soloing. I just said to play the minor pentatonic scale. I immediately regretted saying that. It was a pat answer and…
Tagged with: Blues, Improvisation, minor pentatonic, minor pentatonic scale, pentatonic scale, scale, Soloing
Posted in Blues, Improvisation
Posted in Blues, Improvisation
ManRoy Music 