After the Second World War youthful artists like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley were wrapping the blues in a new envelope called “rock’n'roll” and the players of the electric blues guitar like B.B. King were heralding the arrival of the lead guitar, soon to be a great attraction for both musicians and audiences. Throughout the evolution of the blues the electric guitar had always been used for solos in jazz bands but now it competed with the singer for the awareness of the listeners.
The blues can be played in any key that takes your heart desires and comes in three central forms: eight bars, for example “Heartbreak Hotel”, sixteen bars like “Saint James Infirmary” and twelve bars like “St. Louis Blues”. For some reason the twelve bar blues form is way more singer-friendly and popular with audiences than the other two, and it is the base of many great songs beyond the blues idiom.
If you go searching the internet you will find that the blues scales are just your common major and minor scales except that the third, fifth and seventh notes are played flat. However, you may be astonished to learn that blues players managed for centuries lacking knowledge about European musical theory. They learnt to sing and play from their families and friends just as many of the fresh white blues players of the nineteen sixties learnt from imitating the artists they heard on records.
And this is where the blues takes another course. After years of imitating their idols something odd happened to the white blues guitar players in Britain and the USA. They developed their own authentic, earliest styles. The elder blues players even began using the new arrangements of classic songs and adopting some of the unbluesy musical innovations introduced by young white guitarists like Eric Clapton. So the beat goes on. An alien culture influences American popular music and in turn gets fresh input from a new generation of guitar players from all over the world.
The Blues Guitar’s Influence On Music
. . . and here is a YouTube guitar video
Play Blues Guitar Like T Bone Walker
Michael Williams explains how to spice up your rhythm guitar playing and get that T Bone Walker sound by adding chromatic approaches to the chords in your favorite blues guitar progressions.
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