I started playing guitar in 1982, and for a teenager learning rock guitar there was no one who loomed larger. The story goes that Edward started out on drums but switched to guitar when his brother Alex could play “Wipeout” better than he could. By the time I was learning, “Eruption“, the stunning guitar solo […]
For What It’s Worth (SOTW)
The Buffalo Springfield were as influential as they were short-lived, but created one of the the most iconic songs of the 60s with “For What It’s Worth”. Releasing 3 albums between 1966 and 1968, the band then splintered to launch the careers of the band’s three singer-guitarists: Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay. The […]
Crosscut Saw (Albert King): easy blues guitar intro
If you want to learn to play blues lead guitar, you need to to back to the source. To understand Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamossa and Eric Clapton, start with the “3 Kings”: B.B, Freddie, and Albert. Albert King’s fat, singing tone on his Gibson Flying V is one of the definitive models for the […]
SOTW: Carolina In My Mind, part 2
As promised, this followup lesson looks at the verses, bridge, and outro of James Taylor’s “Carolina In My Mind”. You can download tab here. But I’d also suggest you download the chord chart. Remember, TAB gives you a sequence of events, a series of locations on the neck. And it’s possible to grasp the musical […]
Picker’s Delight: Uneasy Rider
Charlie Daniels’ story of a roadhouse encounter gone wrong is a classic country “talkin’ blues”. The song itself simply repeats a simple eight-bar progression in C: C C F FG G C (C G) Or, in numbers: 1 1 4 45 5 1 (1 5) Follow strict alternate picking: downstroke on the downbeat, upstroke on […]
SOTW: Sister Golden Hair
This classic hit by America is a great barre chord workout, and can be played with a very simple strum or with several varying parts. Download the full tab. Here are the primary chords. Notice the use of the 5-string form of C#m at the beginning, but all the other barre chords are 6-note forms […]
