Blues Slide Guitar

Most of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when significant events in our life occurred. W.C. Handy’s transmogrification from formally trained musician and educator to ‘Father of the Blues’ was triggered in a single moment on a Tutwiler, Mississippi train track back in 1903.

Slide guitar blues is produced when a player uses some kind of tubular finger covering (usually made of metal or glass, like a bottleneck) to depress the strings of a guitar over the frets so that the strings are stretched and bent, producing a wavering tone. Traditionally slide guitar blues was played on resonator guitars, but a variety of acoustic and electric guitars have also been used. Blues slide guitar originated in the Mississippi Delta region where it was popularized by a number of blues players, including Robert Johnson. Electric slide guitar blues developed along with other electric blues styles with the migration of African-Americans north to Chicago in the 1940s.

Learn foundational beginner blues slide guitar licks. The vocal-like, expressive qualities of slide guitar is why so many blues masters have dedicated the time to learn the technique and build a vocabulary of tasty slide licks to spice their music with.

There's something fun and catchy about Michael Messer's eclectic album, King Guitar. Although the guitar featured on the cover is a vintage acoustic model, the music runs the gauntlet between down-and-dirty electric blues and quiet Delta slide. In a way, this mixture is sort of like an early Fleetwood Mac, with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer bringing different blues styles together in one group. Messer, however, accomplishes all of this by himself. His acoustic slide guitar is the epitome of taste on the lovely "Crow Blues" and the happy, upbeat "Steel Guitar Blues." His playing style seems centered on laying down what works best for a particular song as opposed to showing off…….

It's the ultimate DVD instructional guide to playing slide guitar like a pro. The disc, which was designed for beginning-to-intermediate guitar players, contains more than two hours of lessons that will help you play in open and standard tunings, learn slide scales for soloing in all keys, plus improvising, open-tuning chord forms, muting, vibrato, Delta and electric blues and more.