Blues Musicians Archives - Page 185 of 196 - I Love Blues Guitar

Category: Blues Musicians

Albert Collins – Honey Hush

Albert Collins

Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and capo.

Albert Collins, “The Master of the Telecaster,” “The Iceman,” and “The Razor Blade” was robbed of his best years as a blues performer by a bout with liver cancer that ended with his premature death on November 24, 1993. He was just 61 years old.

Albert is most famous for his fingerstyle playing. He uses “open F-minor tuning,” use of a capo and live performances.

“He was just naturally one of the most exciting and energetic live artists I’ve ever seen,” said Alligator Records owner Bruce Iglauer, who co-produced Albert Collins’ output for the label.

His music isn’t always pretty, and it certainly doesn’t have classic form. Albert always plays with a feeling. You never know what Collins’ fingers will produce. Sometimes it sounds as if he doesn’t either. However, his solos never fail to dazzle.

Iceman

Albert Collins – I Ain’t DrunkAlbert “Iceman” Collins (1932-1993) – an American blues singer and guitarist. Texan played guitar from an early age. Growing up in a musical environment Collins had a lot of inspiration, like his cousin – known guitarist. At age 20, formed a band the Rhythm Rockers. Collins, next to B.B. King and Albert King is one of the pantheons of blues guitarists, having a significant impact on today’s guitarists, not just blues one.

Albert began his career in the late 1960s, recorded over 20 albums. Mentioned as the inspiration of many musicians of later generations, including Jimi Hendriks and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Collins was born in Texas in 1932, he was the cousin of the famous guitarist Lightnin ‘Hopkins. He played the guitar from his early youth, he moved to Houston when he was 7 years old. The first group – the Rhythm Rockers – was founded in 1952. Six years later, he recorded “The Freeze”, his debut single for Kangaroo Records. Collins’s later pieces, often instrumental, also referred to winter themes, such as “Icy Blue”, “Do not Loose Your Cool” or “Defrost”.

The biggest hit of Collins turned out to be the instrumental song “Frosty” released in 1962, which sold millions of copies. In 1968, after a joint concert with Canned Heat in California, Bob Hite introduced him to Imperial Records, who agreed to release Collins’ solo album.

In 1978, he joined Alligator Records, where he recorded 7 albums, including one with the participation of two other famous blues guitarists: Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland.

April 4, 2015
Freddie King – Woke Up This Morning

Freddie King – Woke Up This Morning

Freddie King

Freddie King (born September 3, 1934, in Gilmer, died December 28, 1976, in Dallas) is an American blues musician.

Like many other bluesmen of his time, he began his career in Chicago. He playing in the groups of Little Sonny Cooper and Hound Dog Taylor. Probably under the influence of Taylor, he developed his specific style of playing blues on an electric guitar.

King’s best-known songs are recorded in the early 1960s. “Hide Away” and “Have You Ever Loved a Woman?”. As well as the Burglar album released in 1974. “Hide Away”. This title derives from the name of the popular Chicago bar. The song was repeatedly recorded and performed, including by Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jeff Healey.

The guitarist died of a heart attack in 1976 during a concert tour, which he played with Clapton, only three days after his last concert.

Playing style and technique

King was characterized by a specific style of playing the guitar, using a plastic thumb pick and a metal index finger pick. He learned this technique from Jimmy Rogers.

King has had a great impact on the work of blues-rock musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ronnie Earl, Peter Green and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

In 1993, the then Governor of Texas announced September 3 as the day of Freddie King. Only such legends as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly experienced such an honor.

In 2003, Freddie King was placed by Rolling Stone magazine on the 25th place in the list of top 100 guitarists of all timeThroughout his career, King favoured Fender amps and used a number of different models, including the Fender Super Reverb and the Fender Dual Showman. Arguably though, the amp with which King is best associated is the Fender Quad Reverb, which he used for much of his career.

April 4, 2015
Tab Benoit – Crawfishin

Crawfishin – Tab Benoit

Tab Benoit

One of the most impressive guitarists to emerge from the rich Bayous of Southern Louisiana in recent years. Tab Benoit’s guitar tone can be recognized before his Otis-Redding-ish voice resonates from the speakers. He doesn’t rely on any effects and his setup is simple. It consists of a guitar, cord, and Category 5 Amplifier. The effects that you hear come from his fingers.

Born on November 17, 1967, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Benoit grew up in the nearby oil and fishing town of Houma, where he still resides today. Musically, he was exposed early on to traditional Cajun waltzes and country music broadcast on his hometown’s only radio station. Benoit’s father was himself a musician; as such, the family home was filled with various instruments. He began playing drums but switched to guitar. It was because the only gigs to be had in rural Louisiana were held in churches and at church fairs. Organizers would not allow loud drums to be played at these events.

In the late 80’s Tab Benoit began hanging out at the Blues Box, a music club and cultural center in Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from these living blues legends. He formed a trio in 1987 and began playing clubs in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Nice and Warm

In 1992 Benoit released his first recording Nice and Warm on the Justice Label. The title track became a AAA Radio hit and Benoit’s touring career kicked into high gear. Nice and Warm prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Tab began playing two-hundred and fifty shows a year, a schedule he has kept up for over twenty years. He recorded four albums for Justice Records before being signed to the Vanguard label, and became Louisiana’s Number One Blues export. Vanguard allowed Tab to produce his own recordings; Tab wanted to record the sound that he was trying to create and in 1999 Vanguard Records released These Blues Are All Mine…

Read more: https://www.tabbenoit.com/bio/

April 4, 2015
Ry Cooder – Vigilante Man

He made me fall in love with slide. Here you can listen to a great interpretation of a Woody Guthrie classic. He play it in open D tuning. There is a lot to be learned in the notes he is playing.

Ryland Peter “Ry” Cooder

Ry Cooder is, without doubt, one of the most iconic bluesmen of the 20th Century, and that’s largely thanks to his distinctive slide guitar technique. He has worked with music legends such as Neil Young, The Rolling Stones and John Lee Hooker, and has proved massively influential in the world of blues music. In fact, he is even credited with introducing Keith Richards to open G tuning which has gone on to become a cornerstone of The Rolling Stones’ sound.

A 2003 list published in “Rolling Stone” credits Cooder as the 8th greatest guitar player in the world, and one of the most distinguishing features of his musical style is his versatility. He has been incredibly prolific as a session musician and film soundtrack artist, as well as a performer in his own right. His work can be heard on the soundtrack of iconic, era-defining movies such as “Performance” (which starred Mick Jagger) and 1984’s “Paris, Texas”, which was directed by legendary European filmmaker Wim Wenders.

Early work

His early work (including the solo albums he released throughout the 1970s) is his most guitar-driven and bluesy, while his later career has seen him embrace world music and the sounds of different cultures. For instance, he collaborated with the Hindustani classical composer Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Malian multi-instrumentalist Ali Farka Toure on the albums “A Meeting by the River” and “Talking Timbuktu”, respectively. Both of these albums received great acclaim for the way in which the Indian and African musical traditions were so effectively amplified and complemented by Ry Cooder’s guitar work and compositions. Paradoxically, he has continued to push boundaries whilst at the same time retaining a fascination and respect for traditional music. That’s what makes him such a vital part of America’s musical landscape, and ultimately what makes him such a unique performer.

April 4, 2015
Jeff Healey Band – Roadhouse Blues

Jeff Healey Band – Roadhouse Blues

Roadhouse Blues

The official video for the Doors song ‘Roadhouse Blues’ as performed by Jeff Healey in the 1989 film, ‘Road House’

I love this old video style. People dancing and have fun, good blues rock music is around. Quality of the video is not the best, but is like our memories fade away with time. Enjoy!

Click here to get Road House movie Now: http://amzn.to/2cU0iXn

Jeff Healey

Canadian guitarist and vocalist, blind since early childhood as a result of a rare type of eye cancer. In the 80s and 90s, enjoyed great popularity and sold millions of CDs around the world.

Despite losing sight, Jeff Healey started playing the guitar while holding it on his lap.

In 1988, he released his debut album The Jeff Healey Band – “See the Light”, which was nominated for the Canadian Juno Award.

It comes from hits “Angel Eyes” (he reached the 5th place on the Billboard list). His version of the blues standard “Hideaway” was Grammy nominated.

During the session to “See the Light” Healey and his band played in the movie “Road House” with Patrick Swayze. Four tracks by The Jeff Healey Band – “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors, “Dylan’s Bob Coming Falling from the Sky”, “(I’m Yours) Hoochie Coochie Man” by Willie Dixon and “I’m Tore Down” by Sonny Thompson.

The singing guitarist collaborated with B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Jimmy Rogers and the ZZ Top group. In 2006, he appeared on the album “Gillan’s Inn” by Ian Gillan from Deep Purple.

On his second album “Hell to Pay” (1990) he recorded his own version of the hit “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by The Beatles, in which he was supported by the author of the song – George Harrison, as well as Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra.

Healey also recorded jazz albums under the Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards (he also played the trumpet), referring to the beginnings of this genre. He was an avid vinyl collector, above all jazz music – he collected over 30,000 records. He reminiscent of the old sounds in his radio program “My Kind of Jazz”.

Healey died of lung cancer at the age of only 41.

Jeff Healey Band – Roadhouse Blues

April 4, 2015
Otis Taylor & Gary Moore – Blues

Otis is the heaviest of the heaviest. There will never be another Gary! Otis is as cool as ever. There is also a fabulous hypnotic and metronomic drummer Josh Kelly.

Gary Moore

An outstanding composer, guitarist, and singer of blues and rock. He is known mainly for his unique, highly emotional style of playing the guitar. The perfect technical mastery of the instrument.
Gary Moore was born April 4, 1952, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He began his career in the second half of the 60s. Inspired by the works of contemporary blues-rock guitarists Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall. He spread his wings as a guitarist of the Irish group Skid Row. That’s when he was spotted by his idol, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, who helped the group to sign a contract with a major label and gave Gary one of his favorite guitars 1959 Gibson Les Paul. After years Moore played this guitar on the entire album with compositions of his idol, “Blues for Greeny.”

Solo career

The 70s are for Moore’s a very busy time. Solo career began by issuing in 1973 the album “Grinding Stone”. He also participated in many side projects. He played mainly in Thin Lizzy and progress rock project Colosseum II. At the end of the decade, and by the entire 80s seriously took up a solo career releasing during this period 7 albums and leaving behind such classics as “Parisienne Walkway’s”, “After The War” and “Over the Hills and Far Away”. In the 80s his style departed somewhat from blues to hard rock and soft metal, but in 1990, he reminded himself as a blues guitarist releasing his most famous album “Still Got The Blues“. This release, featured Albert Collins, Albert King, George Harrison.

Blues accompanied guitarist on subsequent albums “After Hours” and “Blues for Greeny.” At the turn of the century Gary Moore experimented with new sounds, however, they issued these style albums that were not too well received by fans and critics here in 2001 again returned to the blues album “Back to the Blues.” His beloved music remained faithful until the end of his career.

He died on 6 February 2011, of a heart attack in his sleep. It was during his holiday in the Spanish town of Estepona.

April 4, 2015
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons ft. Kid Rock – Guitar Moves

Guitar Moves, hosted by Matt Sweeney, is a show where the viewer gets an opportunity to sit in on a private, interesting, and hilarious conversation about guitars, music, life, and craft. During the season, Sweeney and his guests play through licks, riffs, and solos that form their style, influence their playing and define their sound.

Billy Gibbons

Born in Texas in 1949, Billy Gibbons began his initial band in his mid-teen years. Around 1970, Gibbons developed ZZ Top, with the first cd following in 1971. Their development followed the participants split means around 1976 after that grew lengthy beards and also reemerged with newfound energy on 1983’s Eliminator, which generated numerous favorites. Billy Gibbons, as well as ZZTop, remains to make music, and also Gibbons has branched off into tv as well as cooking undertakings.

Along with the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons is unquestionably one of the finest blues-rock guitarists to ever emerge from Texas.

A longtime vintage guitar collector, Gibbons owns some of the world’s most cherished and rare guitars, including a particular instrument that he’s become synonymous with, a 1959 Sunburst Les Paul Standard (which he dubbed “Pearly Gates”).

Gibbons’ exceptional playing with ZZ Top that he’s best known for, as the guitarist has influenced a wide variety of players over the years, including the Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood and Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell, to name just two.

Blues

Blues is a musical genre known as the folklore of African-American musicians. Its origins are associated with the southern states of the USA, that is the region conventionally called the “deep south”. The very name of the genre (sadness, despair) is related to its nostalgic form, also in the textual layer. Blues pieces touch male-female relationships as well as feelings and emotions (love, loneliness, faithfulness, jealousy). However, blues performers often sing about freedom, work and travel. The songs also feature social criticism relating mainly to racial inequality and political issues.

April 4, 2015
Rory Gallagher – Pistol Slapper Blues and Too Much Alcohol

Engage your senses: Press play on the video, then stimulate your brain with the article.

Rory Gallagher – Pistol Slapper Blues and Too Much Alcohol

Rory tearing up some Blind Boy Fuller and J.B. Hutto on steel acoustic.

Rory Gallagher

Rory Gallagher (1948-1995) was an Irish guitar virtuoso playing blues and rock, songwriter, and concertmaster.

He sold 30 million albums but gained the greatest recognition thanks to his live performances. Gallagher is considered one of the most energetic and charismatic guitarists of his generation, for the precursor of hard rock, and even grunge (worn-out pants, flannel shirt, and worn-out guitar – these are elements of his stage image). He was an outsider and his works often talk about alienation, life on the road, and seeking freedom.

In 1972, Rory embarked on a tour of Europe promoting the album “Deuce”. He was also accompanied by a white Telecaster in 1966 because it was perfect for “Bullfrog Blues” tracks. The musician, however, began to use guitars with stronger transducers, which were very good with the slide game, for example, Esquire from 1959 or Gretsch PX6134 Corvette with the P-90 converter. He was faithful to this latter for many years.

Solo career

Rory’s solo career began to gain momentum especially in 1973 when drummer Wilgar Campbell – tired of the tour promoting the album “Deuce” – left the music. In his place, Rory accepted Rod de’Atha. Behind the keys sat Lou Martin. This was a great move: thanks to the new element, which were the keys, Rory could afford more freedom and experiments on the guitar.

With the help of this strong lineup, Rory recorded two more studio albums. The composition continued throughout the “Irish Tour” until 1977. Rory’s equipment was also undergoing a transformation. The Vox AC30 did not match the new group sound. So the artist started using a few Fenders, but he resigned from Rangemaster using Hawk’s treble booster instead.

Irish Tour 1974

For many fans, the “Irish Tour” is the album that best captures Gallagher’s musical talent. As in a nutshell, he focuses all his most spectacular achievements in playing the guitar. This is a phenomenal concert and a phenomenal album. It included not only energetic performances of studio songs from 1973, such as “Tattoo’d Lady”, but also lively covers, for example, “As The Crow Flies” by Tony Joe White. Rory played it on the National Triolian Resophonic Guitar.

The route around Ireland has gone to the legend, as evidenced by the fact that Bare Knuckle Pickups has released a series of pickups called the Irish Tour.

March 28, 2015
Albert King – Oh Pretty Woman

Albert King – Oh Pretty Woman

Engage your senses: Press play on the video, then stimulate your brain with the article.

Recorded Live: 9/23/1970 – Fillmore East – New York, NY

This song performed by Albert King appears on the album Born Under A Bad Sign (1967)

Albert King

(April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992), known professionally as Albert King. He was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing. As one of the “Three Kings of the Blues Guitar” (along with B.B. King and Freddie King), he is perhaps best known for the 1967 single “Born Under a Bad Sign”.

In May 2013, King was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Albert was a big man and the Flying V guitar was his weapon of choice. It was like a toy in his huge hands. He eschewed picks, preferring to pluck the strings with his fingers.

His bluesy bends and stinging notes influenced a later generation of players including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix, among others.

King of the blues guitar

Albert King is the undisputed “king of the blues guitar” and one of the “three kings of the blues” along with B.B. King and Freddie King. He started his legend with a debut album recorded for Stax Records. The greatest influence on King was pre-war bluesman Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as post-war artists such as T-Bone Walker and Howlin ‘Wolf. He himself became a role model for another master – Jimi Hendrix.

Albert quickly began to perform for a wider audience, he played, which was then difficult to comprehend, for white listeners, among others in the Fillmore Auditorium, thanks to which his fans became e.g. Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Gary Moore, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He became an inspiration. It can be safely said that he contributed to the creation of the so-called white blues in the UK.

March 28, 2015
Taj Mahal and Eric Bibb – Diving Duck Blues

Taj Mahal and Eric Bibb – Diving Duck Blues

Taj Mahal’s music has almost alone reshaped the definition and scope of the blues by means of the infusion of exotic tunes from the Caribbean, Africa and South Pacific.

Taj Mahal

Born in Harlem, New York but raised in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger hailing from Jamaica, while his mother was a teacher who sang gospel. She came from North Carolina. His grandfather married a woman from Saint Kitts.

He studied agriculture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the early 1960s, graduating in 1964. (The same university awarded him the honorary title of Doctor of Fine Arts in 2006). There he founded Taj Mahal & Elektras. The name Taj Mahal was inspired by a dream.

After college, he moved to Los Angeles and founded the Rising Sons group with Ry Cooder in 1964. The band signed with Columbia Records and released a single and recorded an album that was not released by Columbia until 1992. Taj, frustrated by mixed feelings about his music, left the band and began a solo career. Still, with Columbia Records, he released an album of his own name in 1968, building on his success, he released a second Natch’l Blues the same year. The Giant Step two-track set released in 1969 resulted in Taj’s strong position as an American blues artist, and the title track has become iconic and is still popular with current audiences. Most memorable, however, was the performance of Cooder and Taj at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.

His music comes from various sources: blues, cajun, gospel, bluegrass, Hawaiian, African, and Caribbean musical traditions. It sticks to the roots and adds a little bit of its own feeling. Plays many musical instruments.

He has received two Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album, the first in 1997 for Señor Blues and the second in 2000 for Shoutin ‘In Key.

He has made soundtracks for many films, including Sounder and Blues Brothers 2000, in which he also appeared.

In 2006, he guest-starred on electric guitar with Ladysmith Black Mambazo while recording the album Long Walk to Freedom

In 2013 he supported Hugh Laurie vocally on the album Didn’t It Rain, in the song “Vicksburg Blues”.

March 28, 2015