Product Description
Comb-bound country blues fingerstyle guitar instruction book and CD.
Fingerpicking blues guitar music is rooted in the work songs, field hollers and spirituals of rural Southern blacks. Many music historians think that blues music first emerged in the Delta area of northwestern Mississippi in the late 1800s.
With its many cotton plantations, the Delta was home to a concentrated population of black sharecroppers. By 1900, itinerant black musicians were playing blues guitar at fish fries, picnics, saloons, railroad depots and elsewhere for drinks and tips.
This unique book features 101 fingerpicking blues guitar licks in standard tuning in the Southern country blues guitar style. The book is for any acoustic guitarist who already has some basic fingerpicking skills and an interest in traditional styles such as parlor guitar, ragtime guitar, slack key guitar, and similar roots music.
The ideas here are useful for fingerboard orientation, technical study, conceptual absorption, vocabulary development, and application to original arrangements or acoustic blues guitar solos. It is a fun and rewarding book for any guitarist who wants to learn country blues guitar licks.
The licks are similar to what one might hear on traditional race recordings on labels such as Okeh Records and Paramount Records, played by fingerstyle guitar players across a wide spectrum including Mississippi blues, Piedmont blues, jug band blues, Texas country blues, Memphis blues, and related roots guitar and musical styles.
Overall, an excellent blues guitar reference book and an excellent value.
Contents
- Four-beat Fingerpicking Blues Licks (in seven keys)
- Eight-beat Fingerpicking Blues Licks (in seven keys)
- Introductions and Turnarounds (in five keys)
- Guide to Symbols and Notation
- Selected Discography
- All 101 licks included on a 99-track CD
Prerequisite Ability
- Early intermediate or intermediate blues guitar player.
- Serious hobbyist acoustic blues guitar player.
- Gigging country blues guitar player looking for new ideas.
- Folk guitar player who wants to learn traditional blues.
- Flatpicking guitar player who wants to learn some classic blues fingerstyle licks.
- Guitar teachers who teach fingerpicking guitar lessons.
- Learn fingerstyle blues guitar licks in the acoustic country blues style.
- General acoustic guitar instruction.
- Develop fingerstyle technique.
- Greater familiarity with guitar fingerboard.
- Learn acoustic blues fingerpicking turnarounds.
- Learn blues licks to apply to blues arrangements or original songs.
User Profiles
Goals and Purposes
Author Recommendations for Supplemental Listening
Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Charley Jordan, Frank Stokes, Lightning Hopkins, Reverend Gary Davis, Brownie McGhee, Pink Anderson, Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Ishman Bracey, Tommy Johnson, Henry Thomas, Charlie Patton, Robert Wilkins, Bo Carter, Memphis Minnie, Funny Papa Smith, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Etta James, Elizabeth Cotton, Mance Lipscomb, Papa Charlie Jackson, Sleepy John Estes, Skip James, Sam McGee, Big Bill Broonzy, Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly), Tommy McClennan, Willie Brown, Sam Collins, and similar fingerpickers. These vintage guitar players invariably provide unlimited enjoyment and inspiration.
Emerging guitarists who are fans of postwar blues guitarists such as Dave Van Ronk, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Ry Cooder, Stefan Grossman, Jorma Kaukonen, Tom Rush, and Rory Block will also find much value here.
101 Mississippi Delta Blues Cotton Picking Guitar Licks
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Popularity: unranked
November 13th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Need to include song ideas with guitar licks..See how to apply Them .. otherwise..Book is very good
Rating: 4 / 5
November 13th, 2009 at 6:21 am
This book contains an amazing variety of country blues (fingerpicking) guitar licks. The licks have helped me understand how to get out of first position and find “blues sounds” in a variety of keys using the non-standard hand positions that blues fingerpickers use.
The book is not a method book for beginners but a collection of nifty ideas for you to learn and then incorporate into your own personal style. Very good for exercise and exploration, too.
I also enjoy the nice variety of turnarounds included in the book.
All the licks are played note for note on the CD and that is also a big plus. I found the product description to be accurate and it’s nice that the publisher includes a number of interior images for viewing prior to purchase. Excellent, fun, and educational.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 13th, 2009 at 7:50 am
The past three years I have studied Scruggs banjo exclusively a few hours a day. That will keep your fingers up to speed when picking up the guitar from time to time. After thirty five years of playing old time banjo and guitar I decided to learn Scruggs style bluegrass banjo before it’s too late!
Now I have returned to more guitar after buying a Taylor six string. With so much great teaching DVD’s on banjo, I was expecting to find good fingerstyle blues as well. There is much material out there however the better well known authors and artists were past my musical technique. I need material to incorporate into my own style, not how to master a blues idiom.
I don’t have the time to spare like when young. All this to say that the books and cd’s I have studied by Larry McCabe are authentic to the style and very useful to the advancing musician. There is at least two years of material to work thru for even the advanced player. Whatever your goals, you will find Larry’s many books geared to your personal playing.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Well, for once, the editorial description is dead on. If you are a lead blues guitar player, but are getting a little bored by what you are doing, this book can really help you. When you first listen to the accompanying CD, you may think that the licks are a little basic. Not so. They only seem that way because the are played at a moderate pace. Pick a lick out, get it down, and then pick up the pace. Mix it with the single note lines you normally play. Not only will it really spice up your solo, but makes you go places you might not go without the lick.
Now, if you are a flat picker, try the Nashville thing of using your flatpick and two fingers. That takes a little practice, but the technique will carry over into every thing you play. If you already use your fingers, this will be not all that difficult. Either way you will set yourself apart from the crowd. Besides, it’s fun.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I wish I’d had this book 30 years ago. Larry McCabe’s 101 Mississippi Delta Blues Cotton Picking Guitar Licks is my favorite book in my entire collection of tablature. I’ve always fingerpicked guitar, and I consider myself somewhat proficient at it. But I never really made much progress trying to teach myself to fingerpick the Delta Blues, mostly because I am entirely self-taught from listening to records. The licks on those old records are pretty difficult to decipher by ear, if you know what I mean. I am currently working my way thru this book, and – so far – it has: 1) taught me alot of great licks that I can apply in numerous situations; 2) broken a few old, bad habitual ways of picking and thinking about picking; and – most importantly – 3) given me fresh ideas for developing my own licks. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5