You might not understand everything going on
in this video, but don’t worry because
with the “Deep Delta Blues” package, you’ll
get it all tabbed out.

But even if we don’t get all the right hand
picking stuff, you can learn a lot from
this video just from the chord shapes
he’s using.

We see we have a “D” shape moved up
2 frets to make an E…

And then we also have like an A7 shape
that’s moved up 2 frets to the B7.

What I mean is, you have a normal A
major open chord, and then you can
hit the G note on the high E string…

That’s an A7…You can also use your
pinky to hit the high A note, to make
what some people call a “long A” chord.

I was aware of these shapes, but I hadn’t
thought to just move those shapes up
2 frets to get the B and B7 chord
as part of a blues…

That’s pretty neat

Again, you’ll have to grab the tabs
in this package to get all the right
hand picking stuff.

Let’s take a look at “Dry Land” now in detail.
Just a couple of technical points before we get
into the tune itself, one is that in the right
hand I tend to anchor gently with the little
finger of my right hand here on the pick guard.

And what I find is that by doing that I’m able
to achieve a really strongly oriented sense of
where each of the strings are and I just feel
pretty clear. Whereas if I floated freely I
don’t think I would be quite as clear. Also,
it kind of gives you a little bit of a fulcrum
there to get a strong rhythmic sound.

This guitar is a 1985 Martin OM-28 Herringbone
Custom, which I had them make for me, in case
you’re interested in that sort of thing. You may be.

Now, if we look at “Dry Land” what we’re going
to see is a song that’s essentially and 8-bar
blues and it’s what you might say a kind of
song family. There are many of these in the
country blues. Big Bill Broonzy’s
“Key to the Highway”, John Hurt’s “Sliding Delta”,
“Crow Jane” by Skip James, Carl Martin did
“Old Time Blues”, so it’s a progression you
encounter frequently in the music. What I would
like to do is work through this song sort of
phrase by phrase, very slowly, giving you a
chance to see what both the left and the right
hand are doing at any given point.

So as we start the tune, it does begin with E,
but in terms of what the left hand is doing,
you’re actually beginning in a D position,
just as though you were going to be playing
a D chord. It also begins on the 4th beat of
the measure prior to the down beat. So if you
think of this in terms of counting it in, it’s
going to go like this: one, two, three, four
and one and two, three and four. There’s the
first measure.

Now, I’ll just do that again slower so that
you can observe what the left hand does.
Basically it’s sliding up two frets and as
you come to the 4th beat the index and middle
fingers come up. So here we go. One, two, three.

Now, that last note that you hit in the bass
is a little bit dissonant, but what’s going
to happen is it resolves really smoothly into
the B-7th chord that follows. Now, if you look
at the right hand in this passage, the thumb
is sort of living up here on the 3rd string.
It’s something that may be a little bit
unfamiliar to you, but what we find as we
look at this music is that Furry is very free
in his thumb work. He’ll do alternations; he’ll
thump with the bass occasionally and sometimes
the thumb ends up all the way up on the 3rd string,
as it does in this instance.

That’s because we need to go a bit deeper
into what the right hand is doing to make
it clear.

However, it will all become crystal-obvious
once you get the tabs. It’s all going to be available
on Tuesday the 13th.

Anyway, check it out:

We’ll pause and I’m going to come back and play
“Spike Drivers” for you one time through at tempo,
and then we’ll work through it phrase by phrase,
figuring out how John Hurt played it.

Okay. So there’s the intro that John Hurt plays for
“Spike Drivers”. As we look at this tune, we see that
he’s fingering the G chord with the ring finger getting
the 3rd fret of the 6th string; the little finger,
the 3rd fret of the 1st; middle finger, 2nd fret of
the 5th string.

In the chorus of the song he moves his little finger
from the 3rd fret of the 1st to the 3rd fret of the
3rd string. He’ll pull his middle finger back
occasionally and get the 2nd fret of the 4th string
and every once in a while he’ll use his index finger
to get the 1st fret of the 1st. So it’s very kind of
compact, efficient left hand that he’s employing here.

In his opening phrase, he begins like this. So what
he’s doing is, he’s filling in on the and of three
and the and of four here with his index finger on
the open 3rd string. And this is something that
John Hurt loved to do, is fill-in on that 3rd string
on the up beats and it generates a lot of rhythmic
impetus. It just gets moving like a locomotive.

Now he gets in the G-7th. So that phrase, he starts
in the G-7th without the little finger, but as he
plays this little run at the end he brings in the
little finger and the little finger to the 1st
string down to the 2nd.

Yes, strictly speaking, the “delta” was only one area in Mississippi,
and there are many other regions and influences that are a part of
acoustic blues and country blues, but who cares — we like the name “Deep Delta Blues”

The first legendary country blues guitarist we’re going to study is Lightnin’ Hopkins.
He has a unique and recognizable style and is number 71 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s
list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He was also a huge influence
on Freddy King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In this video, we’re going to share with you 3 killer blues turnaround tricks you can use.
Two of these are from getting to the B chord from the E, and one is for moving to the A chord.

Check it out! Feel free to post a comment!

In one case he’s sliding; in one case he’s choking.

Now, I’m just going to take a minute. He’s very free
with these E-blues and he has lots of different tricks
that he uses. He doesn’t use them all in this song.

In another great, slow E-blues, one called “Hurricane Beula”,
he comes up with some different kinds of tricks that
he uses on the turnaround and I’m going to try to go
through them quickly to give you an idea of how you
can change things up and use different variations
for these things.

Instead of just going straight to the B-7 chord on
the turnaround, Lightening will sometimes do this.
He’ll take this run and he’ll run it up the other
way. He’ll go from this E note and go into his B-7
chord this way, by going from the E note, the open
3rd string, 2nd fret, 3rd fret, 4th fret and he’ll
slide down and it’s a transition to get into his B chord.

Another transition he often uses to get into the B chord,
one that I particularly like, is this one. He’ll go
on his B string, 3rd fret…

Two different ways of getting into the B chord for
the turnaround. One of them is… The other one is…

He’ll move to his A chord. One of the most beautiful
things he does with this A chord, sometimes he’ll
just play the chord. Sometimes he’ll go up to this
A note. Let me show you this. A chord. He goes up
to this A note on the 1st string. He’s playing an
A base, 3rd fret. He goes down to this E note on
the 2nd string.