Originally Posted by: ridefree72

thank you everyone, certainly would be alot to take on everything, But you are right that blues leaves a very solid foundation for everything else so I think thats what Im going to do :)

Blues in general undergirds most popular music. Knowing blues scales, licks and overall general vocabulary puts a lot of the baseline work out of the way particularly for rock and metal. With that said, you don't have to exclusely focus on blues so much as be sure that what you are incorporating has a good blues basis. And, if you hear that artist X likes Elmore James, check out Elmore...that kind of thing.

Lots to learn but don't overthink it. Think in terms of discovery. One thing leads to another and so on. The key is not to exactly just focus on blues but to be sure that you understand what role blues played in a song and go back and learn where that lick or riff came from originally.

I've said many times here that blues has a vocabulary. Learn it and it opens up a lot of avenues for you in terms of what you can play and seeing those licks and patterns throughout music.