I’ve been thinking a lot about your question all day long. First, let me say that I am not qualified to teach anyone anything. Especially when it comes to how to play the blues. Heck man, I’m learning too. But I can tell you a little something about the blues. I have been an avid blues fan for a lot longer than I care to admit but that long-term love of the music has taught me a few things.

A lot of folks think that the blues is about feeling bad. Not true. The blues is about feeling good. It’s about turning that pain, those things that weigh you down, and releasing them through song. The blues is all about redemption.

There are literally dozens of differing styles of blues. From the early Delta blues of the Mississippi – Arkansas delta to the Piedmont blues of the Carolinas and south east to the Texas stomp blues and the Chicago Post-War electrified blues that essentially gave birth to rock and roll. The blues rears its head in gospel and country and even in some of the early ragtime jazz recordings. There are blues played on the piano, blues played on the harmonica and the blues we all know, picked out on the guitar.

The best way, in my humble and probably completely uninformed opinion, to learn the blues is to take a history lesson. Listen to all the styles. Listen to the great players. Listen to how Robert Johnson works those weirdly long fingers and alternate tunings and combines that with that haunting voice to create the best example of the Delta blues. Listen to the other greats; Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly. Listen close. You’ll hear some things in there that show up later in Zepplin and Cream solos. I swear sometimes when I listen to Robert Johnsons recordings, I can practically see ol’ Scratch leaning over Roberts shoulder, breathing on his neck, while Robert is signing over his soul for his ability to play that night at the crossroads when the clock struck twelve.

Listen to Lightning Hopkins and Elmore James. Heck man, you can practically taste that Texas clay when they hit it.

Check out the Chess and Checker catalogues. Listen to the wail that Howlin’ Wolf put on a record. You’ll know where he got his name when you hear ‘Killin’ Floor’ and ‘Smokestack Lightning’.

You can almost hear the labor pains of the blues birthing rock and roll when you hear Muddy plug in on the South side Chicago and ripping it through ‘Can’t be satisfied’ and ‘Catfish Blues’. There’s Buddy Guy putting a little more rock and roll into the blues. And he still puts on one helluva a show. Albert Collins, Albert and Freddie King,

Follow that with the first blues revival in the late 50’s and early 60’s. John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Ray Charles (yeah, I know. Ray was a keyboard player but listen to how he plays it. Listen to the timing. Feel the soul of the music).

These people inspired some of the greatest rock and rollers that we’ve ever had. If there were no blues, there would have been no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Mike Bloomfield, no Kinks, no The Who, no Allman Brothers…. It’s like an old testament family tree. This one begat this one who begat that one…from there, the list goes on and on. Stevie Ray Vaughn. The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Johnny Winter. Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Joe Bonnamassa (that may not be spelled right but you know who I mean).

In other words, listen. When you get a chance, go see the old timer blues players when they pass through your town. Read up on the blues history. Watch the videos.

And of course, practice, practice, practice…

Like a signature on someone’s post says (I think it’s Leedog) “The blues are easy to play, hard to feel’. :cool: