50 Electric Blues Guitar Licks

Los Angeles jazz, rock and blues jams are frequently heavily infused with latin percussion; Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Alvin Lee guitar licks; George Duke, Willie Dixon, Berry Oakley and James Johnson bass runs; and horns. Oh yes, the horns. Although they rarely take the lead, they act as point and counter-point. Quick blasts of power followed by torrents of blues guitar licks. When the music slows an Angeleno mestizo Eagles sound a mixture of country, blues, folk and rock - predominates. And, of course, all of it is layered in an often hypnotic blues, country or latin-tinged rhythm punctuated by lead and background vocals. That summarizes The Delgado Brothers and the contents of their September 2009 release, Learn to Fly.

Revered for his "Dust My Broom" riff, the biggest slide guitarist in postwar blues was a major link between traditional Delta and modern Chicago blues.

After leaving Ukiah, CA, and moving south to San Francisco to form the Charles Ford Band (named for their father) in the late '60s with harmonica player Gary Smith, brothers Pat (drums) and Robben (guitar) were enlisted by Charlie Musselwhite and were pivotal members of one of the best aggregations the harpist ever led. Leaving Musselwhite after recording Arhoolie's Takin' My Time, they recruited bassist Stan Poplin and younger brother Mark, then age 17, on harmonica and played under the name the Real Charles Ford Band. Heavily influenced by the original Butterfield Blues Band and the Chess catalog, the quartet was famous for their live jazz explorations…

2011 three CD collection from the Blues legend. Without T-Bone's innovatory approach to playing the guitar there would have been no B.B. King, no Buddy Guy, no Freddie King, no Eric Clapton, nor any of the plank-spankers who strut the stage at Blues festivals and club gigs. The line began with T-Bone, who, along with his friend Charlie Christian, invented the vocabulary for the amplified guitar. Throughout the late 1940s, T-Bone cut a sequence of singles for labels like Black & White and Capitol that laid the groundwork for what became the prevailing style of Blues recording. T-Bone transferred to the Imperial label in 1950 but the music continued in an unbroken line of creative superiority, heard in 'The Hustle Is On', 'Strollin' With Bone', 'I Get So Weary' and 'Here In The Dark'. 75 tracks.

All of King's recordings for the Bobbin label are on this 22-track disc, including everything from his 1959-1963 singles for the label and previously unissued alternate takes of "Why Are You So Mean to Me," "The Time Has Come," and the previously unissued "Blues at Sunrise." While these are decent journeyman urban blues/R&B, they're not up to the level of his subsequent recordings for Stax. Albert King just sounds too much like the records another King – B.B. King, that is – was making during the same era. There are similar horn arrangements and alternation of stinging guitar with smooth, confident vocal phrasing. It's a tribute to Albert King's abilities, in a way, that it does sound confident, and not the work of an imitator, despite the similarities.

More impressive than Shorty's British venture thanks to superior production values and a better handle on his past (there's a stellar remake of "Hard Life"), Topsy Turvy made it clear that Guitar Shorty was back to stay stateside. Black Top assembled a fine New Orleans combo for the majority of the album, as Shorty proved that his act translates beautifully to record minus the crowd-pleasing acrobatic antics. When he's not turning somersaults, doing backward flips, and standing on his head – all while playing, of course – Guitar Shorty is prone to cutting loose with savagely slashing licks on his instrument. Live, he's simply amazing – and after some lean years, his latter-day albums for Black Top, Evidence, and Alligator have proven that all that energy translates vividly onto tape.