Master of Slide

The definitive electric slide guitar course

With his ever-fresh and expansive musical outlook, Slide Hampton is the personification of the composer-arranger-instrumentalist in jazz. His composing and arranging prowess have long been sought by all manner of ensembles, from small groups to orchestras, student ensembles to professional bands. His superb trombone playing once elicited an ultimate seal of approval from the father of the modern jazz trombone and Hampton mentor, J.J. Johnson. From a backstage vantage point at a Kennedy Center performance, Johnson was overheard referring to a solo Slide performed as part of a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie as "one of the most articulate ever given on a trombone".

This eleven-track collection features some of the most thrilling electric slide guitar playing ever captured. The band blends rock, funk and even the deepest blues with a ferocity that will startle fans of Duane Allman, Derek Trucks and even Muddy Waters. Two songs from the album celebrate the music of Elmore James, the Chicago blues legend who made his mark as a master of the slide guitar technique that would later influence greats including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and, of course Robert Randolph.

David Hamburger’s Focus On: Standard Tuning Slide will quickly impart the requisite right and left-hand techniques, harmonic approaches and fretboard positioning for playing slide guitar in standard tuning — but still sounding like open-tuning slide guitar work! “While there’s a whole lineage of bona fide standard tuning slide masters, from Robert Nighthawk through Mick Taylor to Warren Haynes and beyond, Focus On: Standard Tuning Slide will teach you how to get the sounds of the classic open-tuned slide wizards while staying in standard tuning. You'll be pleased to discover how much you can begin conjuring up in the way of Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Duane Allman and other slide masters — all in standard tuning.”

There are many books that show you how to play slide with lots of `riffs` and scales but often what is required is to just play simple melodies you recognize. Playing these tunes will help you develop correct intonation and important techniques like muting.

Whitesnake scored its first platinum-selling album in 1984 with Slide It In, a release that has sold more than six million copies worldwide thanks to hard-rocking songs like “Love Ain’t No Stranger,” “Slow An’ Easy” and the title track. The classic album turns 35 this year!