# Helping out with some blues guitar recommendations **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 26, 2009, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487 "2009-02-26T07:01:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/21 "2009-02-27T06:07:42Z")
> [@Hunter\_Hawk](#): > > Here’s a [couple](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-tq8bzWsAQ) [of](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9j_GWjcUOM) [tracks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJFvmYvbSEI). If you search on Youtube there are also some tracks with video. He also has at least one album released by Fat Possum. Wow. Just wow. Thank you. He’s the real deal. His stuff is raw and minimalist, but it is just distilled essence of blues, ain’t it? He sounds like Hound Dog Taylor without as much distortion and while he has a different sound, he has the basic rawness of RL Burnside and Asie Payton, both Fat Possum artists, too. Jeez, where’s \*\*elelle \*\*when you need him? He’s a Doper who knew these guys and always has a story. I wonder if he knew Cedell Davis? I must admit, it is late, I had a _great_ meal at Ristorante Milano (they weren’t serving the white-sauce lasagna tonight, but the Osso Bucco over soft polenta more than made up for the absence!) and have to get up at 4:30am tomorrow morning to get to the airport for my flight. Okay - so what can I do about Peter Green? \*\*BubbaDog \*\*- hmm, what can I tell you? Okay - try this: Imagine a guy from the exact same scene (Brit Blues in the sixties) playing the exact same guitar (a '59 Les Paul 'burst) and the same amp (a dimed Fender Twin), who also replaced Eric Clapton (Beck replaced Clapton in the Yardbirds; Greenbaum (his given name) replaced Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) - but had a COMPLETELY different style. How’s that? 😉 Okay - listen to [The Supernatural](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOKj5XdVAE)(YouTube link, again with the silly pictures - why do people _do_ that?!?!?). Okay - the first thing you think is “wow, should Carlos Santana sue Peter Green? Because that sounds exactly like Santana” but then you realize that this came out before Santana, well, even existed, as a band or a guitar presence anyway. Bottom line? Santana owes, IMHO, 100% of his career to Peter Green and the fact that Santana took that approach to guitar and kept it going while Green unfortunately became an acid casualty of the 60’s like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Okay, so if good blues = less is more and simpler is better, then Green is the guy who took that to an extreme with a guitar feeding back. Here’s the deal: when you play electric guitar, you sometimes want to hit a note and hold it. When the note endures, like a singer holding a note for a long time, that is called “sustain” as in “dude, did you hear the sustain he got out of his rig - how does he do that?” Well, beginning guitarists can’t make a note sustain; you have to press down _just so_ - it has to be hard enough to keep the note fretted, but somehow, if you are pressing too hard, you kinda choke off the note, too - you don’t let it catch the wave of feedback that the overloaded amp wants to drive into the note. It’s weird. Ah, but what is interesting is that if you crank an amp so it is feeding back just enough (not so much that it simply overloads and farts out noise) AND you have that _just right_ amount of pressure - oh, AND you work your finger in a little circle as you are fretting the note so you put a little vocal-sounding vibrato into the note? Well, for want of a better term, you _coax_ the note along - the feedback is adding energy and the combination of your hard-but-not-too-hard finger pressure and waggle of vibrato keeping the feedback from reaching white-noise critical mass and instead the note just…sustains. And a damn good guitar play like Peter Green or Santana can coax a minute or two of sustain out of a note. THAT is what you are hearing when you listen to The Supernatural - yeah, if you put on headphones you can hear that they are being all 60’s psychedelic and panning the guitar from one speaker over to the other (dude, are you high yet? that’s so rad! ;)) but coaxing that kind of sustain out of a note? Please - that’s some master-class shit we are talking about, okay? The CD I recommend doesn’t even have The Supernatural on it - that’s on John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers CD A Hard Road which is entirely purchase-worthy - but Green wanted more control so pulled Mick Fleetwood and John McVie away from Mayall, and, being a passive-aggressive pre-acid-casualty kinda guy, had the band named Fleetwood Mac - but since everyone knew it was his band, it was typically referred to as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. Anyway, that Best Of CD has some GREAT stuff on it - Green hooked up with a great slide player, Jeremy Spencer (who disappeared on a tour in a California and turned up in a religious cult he is still a member of to this day) and Danny Kirwan (another great Les Paul player who had his own psychological issues that led to unpleasantness on and off stage - what _is_ it with these guys?!). They have great, great songs like Black Magic Woman (what? you thought that was Santana’s? No - he was kneeling at the feet of the master, thankyouverymuch) and Albatross (an ambient, mellow instrumental - just beautiful). Peter Green is one of those deeply in-the-know kinda players. His Les Paul - which legendarily had a magnet flipped in one of it’s pickups by mistake so that when both pickups were selected it had a different, out-of-phase tone - was owned for years by Gary Moore of Thin Lizzy and his own blues work - but he sold it a couple of years ago when he needed the money. It was listed for well over $1million (like I said, folks who like Peter Green LOVE Peter Green) but I am not sure how much it actually sold for. Peter himself came out of, um, retirement a few years ago and has played a few gigs, but near as I can tell, it’s kind of like that piano player from that move Shine - the fact that he is alive and capable of playing at all is a lot more important than whether he is actually any good or not… ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/22 "2009-02-27T11:58:40Z")
What do you think of Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter? The Hard Again album? That was my gateway blues album that led to 5 years as a college DJ playing the blues and a lifelong attachment. Didn’t hurt that i saw Muddy live about 2 years later at the Sacramento Blues frstival sans Johnny but with Albert Cray. But I digress, the opening licks of the guitar and Muddy’s vocal calls. Damn. IMHO it just doesn’t et any better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/23 "2009-02-27T12:05:29Z")
Hubert Sumlin’s hasn’t come up yet, and it needs to. He’s an oddball player but a creative one, and when I’ve heard his work on Howlin’ Wolf’s albums, it never sounds like generic blues guitar. Really unique playing. Hidden Charms features a great solo. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/24 "2009-02-27T12:35:43Z")
BTW, here’s a link to the Mannish Boy version with Johnny Winter I’m referring to: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGrc8-FrmI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGrc8-FrmI) And I second Hubert Sumlin ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/25 "2009-02-27T12:54:09Z")
Hubert Sumlin plays Howlin’ Wolf instructional video clip is here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYtgj5v49gE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYtgj5v49gE) Around 30 years ago I read a Hubert Sumlin interview maybe in Guitar Player (?). He told a story along the lines of when they were playing in London and they did a session with Eric Clapton. Maybe it was the Howlin Wolf London Sessions (?). After the session, Eric Clapton took Hubert back to his house in a limo. Eric took him to his guitar collection, and said “pick one and take it home.” And he did. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/26 "2009-02-27T13:05:08Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Jeez, where’s \*\*elelle \*\*when you need him? He’s a Doper who knew these guys and always has a story. I wonder if he knew Cedell Davis? Probably off doing girly shit – since she’s a girl. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/27 "2009-02-27T14:56:40Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Probably off doing girly shit – since she’s a girl. I _hate_ it when that happens! Sorry **elelle** if you read this!!! Waiting for my plane back to NY - and just realized my assistant has me flying back on a diff airline so my car is at a diff terminal - joy. ---
**Author:** ![mabes10](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@mabes10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mabes10)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/28 "2009-02-27T20:34:17Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Wow. Just wow. Thank you. He’s the real deal. His stuff is raw and minimalist, but it is just distilled essence of blues, ain’t it? He sounds like Hound Dog Taylor without as much distortion and while he has a different sound, he has the basic rawness of RL Burnside and Asie Payton, both Fat Possum artists, too. > > Jeez, where’s \*\*elelle \*\*when you need him? He’s a Doper who knew these guys and always has a story. I wonder if he knew Cedell Davis? > > I must admit, it is late, I had a _great_ meal at Ristorante Milano (they weren’t serving the white-sauce lasagna tonight, but the Osso Bucco over soft polenta more than made up for the absence!) and have to get up at 4:30am tomorrow morning to get to the airport for my flight. > > Okay - so what can I do about Peter Green? \*\*BubbaDog \*\*- hmm, what can I tell you? Okay - try this: Imagine a guy from the exact same scene (Brit Blues in the sixties) playing the exact same guitar (a '59 Les Paul 'burst) and the same amp (a dimed Fender Twin), who also replaced Eric Clapton (Beck replaced Clapton in the Yardbirds; Greenbaum (his given name) replaced Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) - but had a COMPLETELY different style. How’s that? 😉 > > Okay - listen to [The Supernatural](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOKj5XdVAE)(YouTube link, again with the silly pictures - why do people _do_ that?!?!?). Okay - the first thing you think is “wow, should Carlos Santana sue Peter Green? Because that sounds exactly like Santana” but then you realize that this came out before Santana, well, even existed, as a band or a guitar presence anyway. Bottom line? Santana owes, IMHO, 100% of his career to Peter Green and the fact that Santana took that approach to guitar and kept it going while Green unfortunately became an acid casualty of the 60’s like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. > > Okay, so if good blues = less is more and simpler is better, then Green is the guy who took that to an extreme with a guitar feeding back. Here’s the deal: when you play electric guitar, you sometimes want to hit a note and hold it. When the note endures, like a singer holding a note for a long time, that is called “sustain” as in “dude, did you hear the sustain he got out of his rig - how does he do that?” Well, beginning guitarists can’t make a note sustain; you have to press down _just so_ - it has to be hard enough to keep the note fretted, but somehow, if you are pressing too hard, you kinda choke off the note, too - you don’t let it catch the wave of feedback that the overloaded amp wants to drive into the note. It’s weird. Ah, but what is interesting is that if you crank an amp so it is feeding back just enough (not so much that it simply overloads and farts out noise) AND you have that _just right_ amount of pressure - oh, AND you work your finger in a little circle as you are fretting the note so you put a little vocal-sounding vibrato into the note? Well, for want of a better term, you _coax_ the note along - the feedback is adding energy and the combination of your hard-but-not-too-hard finger pressure and waggle of vibrato keeping the feedback from reaching white-noise critical mass and instead the note just…sustains. And a damn good guitar play like Peter Green or Santana can coax a minute or two of sustain out of a note. THAT is what you are hearing when you listen to The Supernatural - yeah, if you put on headphones you can hear that they are being all 60’s psychedelic and panning the guitar from one speaker over to the other (dude, are you high yet? that’s so rad! ;)) but coaxing that kind of sustain out of a note? Please - that’s some master-class shit we are talking about, okay? > > The CD I recommend doesn’t even have The Supernatural on it - that’s on John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers CD A Hard Road which is entirely purchase-worthy - but Green wanted more control so pulled Mick Fleetwood and John McVie away from Mayall, and, being a passive-aggressive pre-acid-casualty kinda guy, had the band named Fleetwood Mac - but since everyone knew it was his band, it was typically referred to as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. Anyway, that Best Of CD has some GREAT stuff on it - Green hooked up with a great slide player, Jeremy Spencer (who disappeared on a tour in a California and turned up in a religious cult he is still a member of to this day) and Danny Kirwan (another great Les Paul player who had his own psychological issues that led to unpleasantness on and off stage - what _is_ it with these guys?!). They have great, great songs like Black Magic Woman (what? you thought that was Santana’s? No - he was kneeling at the feet of the master, thankyouverymuch) and Albatross (an ambient, mellow instrumental - just beautiful). > > Peter Green is one of those deeply in-the-know kinda players. His Les Paul - which legendarily had a magnet flipped in one of it’s pickups by mistake so that when both pickups were selected it had a different, out-of-phase tone - was owned for years by Gary Moore of Thin Lizzy and his own blues work - but he sold it a couple of years ago when he needed the money. It was listed for well over $1million (like I said, folks who like Peter Green LOVE Peter Green) but I am not sure how much it actually sold for. Peter himself came out of, um, retirement a few years ago and has played a few gigs, but near as I can tell, it’s kind of like that piano player from that move Shine - the fact that he is alive and capable of playing at all is a lot more important than whether he is actually any good or not… Thanks for that. The only Peter Green I have is Soho Sessions, far from his prime. Love it though and it does have Black Magic Woman which I always assumed was Santana’s. Will definitely get more PG. ---
**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/29 "2009-02-27T22:22:59Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Where are you? I lived at Hyde and Washington for a few years. You are so lucky - between the Hyde St. Bistro, Pacifico, the restaurants up Hyde by Union and the best damn cheap Chinese on the planet, U-Lee (whose pot stickers _have_ been known to solve world hunger and achieve peace between warring nations) you are pretty well set! If you look into Cafe Pacifico much past 6 or so tonight and see a Dan Aykroyd-looking dude with orgasm-face from eating lasagna, well, that would be me (sorry for the icky visual of Elwood Blues having sex, but what can you do? Their food is _so_ good!). I’m at Washington & Leavenworth and know all the places you mentioned - I’m just sorry I got back to this too late to drop in on you. Next time you’re in town, maybe? In keeping with the thread (rather than the hijack), what do you think about Harvey Mandel? He’s amazing in person - [Youtube link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3dECTY7Beo). He started with Charlie Musselwhite, so was blues from early on. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/30 "2009-02-28T00:25:19Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I _hate_ it when that happens! > > Sorry **elelle** if you read this!!! > > Waiting for my plane back to NY - and just realized my assistant has me flying back on a diff airline so my car is at a diff terminal - joy. Heh, thanks Twicks…no prob Wordman, I’ve found that if you know anything about the blues, folks tend to think you must be a guy. I did know Cedell Davis, and love him. I took the cover photo for his first album. He is [unique](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeDell_Davis) in his method of playing due to his polio disability, and then some: > [@](#): > > Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, Davis began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. He played with Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953 to 1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair from then on. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing. It was great to see him recorded and have a good second wind of career, getting out of the small Arkansas apartment he was in and get accollades. So many elder American blues musicians were unnoticed, and the recordings by Fat Possum and Rooster Blues in the 90’s were important for giving a new audience to these great musicians. WordMan, I’m enjoying your passionate descriptions here. Keep 'em coming! ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/31 "2009-02-28T03:50:27Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > What do you think of Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter? Johnny Winter has some awesome electric blues and traditional blues chops, and I’m surprised his name hasn’t popped up much in this thread. _Progressive Blues Experiment_ is awesome, as well as _Nothing but the Blues_, which features a bunch of amazing acoustic dobro work, and his electric blues work is outstanding. His work with Muddy was just fine, fine stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/32 "2009-02-28T04:14:10Z")
I say again and again, the _best_ and most informative reading is right here on the _Dope_. I too have _Truth_, and if I were home right now, you better believe I’d dig it out, slide it into my player, and read along with WordMan’s recommendations. If you aren’t _already_ writing for a major publication, then you _should_ be! Thoroughly fascinating read! Quasi ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/33 "2009-02-28T15:56:49Z")
Hey - thanks; I spend my days applying a fairly rigorous structure to what I do - it’s nice to relax and go a bit more _free-form,_ even though it feels risky not being to edit for foot-in-mouthiness, you know? But structure prevails today; we have an all-day strat-planning meeting, so I’m on deck. I love my job, but weeks like this are…_crowded._ ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/34 "2009-02-28T16:56:19Z")
Late to the party again, but I bring refreshments with me. I linked to this one in the last thread, but if you’re a fan of Mike Bloomfield you need to hear the super funky but still bluesy has hell [Iron Horse](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHfP-0Xlc5U) off the Merl Saunders and Friends album Keepers. The wah drenched solo just kills, the only issue is that the track is way too short. Speaking of Bloomfield, who is one of my favorite of the hippie era white boy blues players, his work post Butterfield with Electric Flag is underrated and awesome. [Try Don’t You Like to Me.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSqmqVbKC1o) The most underrated of the same era is easily Jerry Garcia. Yes, that Jerry Garcia, he of the 45 minute tone death skronk fests. Early on the Dead were one mean ass blues band, and Jerry’s playing was sharp, virtuostic, and deadly. Even if you don’t like the Dead, move [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHn6jCYsdo) to 2:09 and tell me that’s not awesome. I’m going to assume that everyone knows about Stevie and the Allmans, so I’m not going to mention either for the purposes of this thread. Let’s not forget Skynykrd’s ability to crank out some real awesome blues either. Both [Mr. Banker](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPWpbatJsZU) and [Four Walls of Raiford](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbpzwFGJFqY&feature=related) are great tracks, Mr. Banker still having the ability to blow me away after all these years. I love acoustic blues just as much as I love electric blues. There’s no hiding mistakes with distortion, you have to nail this stuff as clean as a whistle or is sounds terrible. Dobro guitar is just the best. Keef can play some nice [acoustic fingerstyle](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SutO9tW9k9g) too. And to take Wordman’s idea in the opposite direction, BB King didn’t play chords, and is a great, but let’s not forget Bo Diddly who never played anything but chords and still raises the hair on the back on my neck. [Turn it up](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ixaXBWtyc)! And I can’t get this fired up listening to someone play the guitar without mentioning the all mighty and shamefully underrated [Frank Zappa](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ChLbZE6_EQ). Is that the blues? Sure why not. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/35 "2009-03-01T22:21:34Z")
Okay - got home from the meeting and dinner around midnight, got up a bit later than normal and finally catching up with the kids. More meetings tomorrow…:dubious: Sorry I haven’t caught up with everyone’s comments and questions; I’ve been super-busy and in a lot of cases, don’t feel qualified to comment - I mean, from what I have heard of both Harvey Mandel and Johnny Winter I like them both, but I have never invested the time - and feel worse off for it. So much great stuff, so little time. \*\*BigShooter \*\*- I like all your choices, agree with you about John Mayer (solid player if a tad too Stevie Ray Vaughn-abee). I disagree with your choice on Hideaway simply out of loyalty to the originator, Freddie King; but Clapton’s is the Eruption of his Day™. I should breakdown a Muddy Waters tune sometime; lemme think about that; and Howlin’ Wolf/Hubert Sumlin - just essential. And **Cluricaun** , I hear you about Jerry Garcia - frankly, before hearing your clip, I had very little respect for him - I find him hugely overrated, the opposite of you. But damn if that clip isn’t wonderful - truly the first thing I’ve ever heard by the Dead I would be interested in owning. And yeah, wonderful work by Garcia; I tip my hat. Who is that on the vocals? Is that Pigpen? If so, it is really too bad he died. Wait, that came out wrong…I mean the Grateful Dead suffered from his loss; is that less snarky? ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/36 "2009-03-01T23:54:12Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > And **Cluricaun** , I hear you about Jerry Garcia - frankly, before hearing your clip, I had very little respect for him - I find him hugely overrated, the opposite of you. But damn if that clip isn’t wonderful - truly the first thing I’ve ever heard by the Dead I would be interested in owning. And yeah, wonderful work by Garcia; I tip my hat. Who is that on the vocals? Is that Pigpen? If so, it is really too bad he died. Wait, that came out wrong…I mean the Grateful Dead suffered from his loss; is that less snarky? It wasn’t snarky in the first place. I’m a dead fan, not a deadhead. 😃 But yes, that was indeed Pigpen. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/37 "2009-03-03T19:38:24Z")
My addictions - OK made it all the way through the Tedeschi CD (wife likes her so she entertained us while we drove). Derek Trucks - I’m going crazy. I’ve heard the first five songs at least once and possibly 6 times. Why? I’ll explain. The only place that I can get a decent listen to the music is in my car. At home there’s just too much interaction. At work I’m stuck with headphones and they just don’t give a good enough listening experience. So 've been playing the Derek Trucks CD in the car but mys schedule this week has me swapping cars with my wife on occasion. That means I pull the CD from one car and put it in the next. So I started the DT CD in my car, listened to a few songs. Wifey rides along and prefers vocals over guitar lead (yeah, I married her anyway) so I pull DT and let his wife take over. Then I go back to everyday mode and put DT back in and start it over. Play about five songs and swap cars with wifey. Pull DT and start over in her car. Why not just advance the tracks you say? Have you HEARD “Down in the Flood”? You just don’t pass something like that up. If I can muster the will power I’ll kick it up to “Sweet Inspiration” (love that solo) and try to get to the end of the disk. Super Session - The horns date it on some songs but I just love it. “Season of the Witch” was about the only song that I remember getting air time when I was a kid so its nice to hear the rest of the album. Jeff Beck Truth - WOW just WOW. This may lead me to a serious Beck addiction. Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac - I haven’t had time to to do more than sample some of the songs. I was surprised by this. The recording sounds primitive. Not bad but I was expecting the typical 60’s British style of pushing Blues up tempo into rock and the few tracks I sampled sound like a hardcore blues. I gotta get this CD into my car because the headphones don’t do it justice. (gotta go louder) So all my pennies are spent yet there is more that I have to explore. The local DT concert is only 5 weeks away. These CDs should hold me till then. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/38 "2009-03-03T19:48:22Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > Jeff Beck Truth - WOW just WOW. This may lead me to a serious Beck addiction. Get _Blow by Blow_ next – it has " 'Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers." ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/39 "2009-03-03T19:55:35Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Get _Blow by Blow_ next – it has " 'Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers." Agreed - but be warned - it is COMPLETELY different in terms of music style and sound vs. Truth. Excellent in its own way - but its way ain’t blues at all. It is one of the few fusion albums I can bring myself to listen to… …and I love Freeway Jam… 😉 Oh, and yeah, I hear you about PGFM - not as overloaded as, say, Cream in terms of gained-up guitars and big-ass drums… ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487/40 "2009-03-04T00:26:54Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I gotta get this CD into my car because the headphones don’t do it justice. (gotta go louder) Damned straight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/helping-out-with-some-blues-guitar-recommendations/487487.md?page=1)