Guitar Licks of the Texas Blues-Rock Heroes (The Guitar Lick Factory Player Series) Pap/Com Edition by Gress, Jesse published by Backbeat Books

by Jesse Gress

With enough hot licks to set the whole Lone Star state afire, this book details the solo styles of legendary guitarists, complete with essential stylistic details that make the music come alive. You get it all, from pioneers like T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, and Lightnin' Hopkins, through the next generation of innovators like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Billy Gibbons, and Johnny Winter, and on to latter-day explorers like Eric Johnson. You'll learn more than 100 licks in the authentic style of each player, each lick with its own mini-lesson, performed by the author at half and full tempo on the accompanying CD. Also a rundown of each player's guitars, amps and effects * lists of must-have tracks, albums and videos * revealing quotes from dozens of 6-string notables * essential tips on tone and style * insight-filled lessons.

Unknown Binding

First published April 1, 2006

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guitar Licks of the Texas Blues-Rock Heroes (The Guitar Lick Factory Player Series) Pap/Com Edition by Gress, Jesse published by Backbeat Books is a "lick book" that will give guitar players new ideas for playing over the blues. Jesse Gress has playing suggestions and music theory analysis for each lick as well as historic background on each player. This is a book that I last went over years ago and many of the licks have been a part of my guitar playing for many years. It was fun to revisit those licks as well learn new ones. In reviewing this book I found the full solos that the licks were sourced from and ended up transcribing those solos. The solos by "T-Bone" Walker, "Pee Wee" Crayton and "Gatemouth" Brown were especially helpful for teaching students to learn "jazzier" sounding lines to use over the blues. I found that the solos of these players were a good bridge between the traditional blues vocabulary and the jazz solos of Charlie Christian. Although I used this book to learn solos from the pioneers of Texas Blues the later guitarists such as Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson are also here. Overall this book would be a good addition to a guitar player's library.