The "Blues Album" to learn every lick from ?

[brogh]

Well

I had a discussion with a friend today, we were talking about what would be the best (electric) blues album to get all the licks off, and learn it by heart, every lick every note, and get it down.

There are so many we have spoken about, we came up with quite some names but we couldn't agree on "one", so let's play this game, now that you've spent some time on guitar an listening to stuff you go back in time and :

you are 15/16, you have just got a guitar, and you want to learn the blues, you have the money to buy ONLY ONE album what would you get ?

We came up with these two :

What's yours ?

And let the fun begin

 

[Marc Morfei]

There is ZZ Top Tres Hombres.

 

[stratoman1]

Oh man, blues covers a whole lot of ground

 

[brogh]

Oh man, blues covers a whole lot of ground

you have ONE choiche cmon .. is it that hard ? ( yeah i know it is )

 

[Jim622]

Beano! or any other Bluesbreakers. Your pick Peter Greene, Mick Taylor, E.C.

 

[tbp0701]

I'll have to say Live at the Regal. You may not learn many chords or tunes, but you'll have the licks.

 

[glenlivet]

https://www.discogs.com/Magic-Sam-Magic-Sam-Live/release/3064963

 

[John Owen]

I'll have to say Live at the Regal. You may not learn many chords or tunes, but you'll have the licks.

That was the one for me when I was just a kid. I wore out a couple of copies of that LP trying to steal BB's licks and learned a ton in the process.

 

[Chiogtr4x]

I just dont think in terms of ' learn every guitar lick' so much as listening to a certain phrasing style ( the note selection and ' melody ' being played), the rhythm, and guitar tones.

That said, I think you cannot go wrong by absorbing the guitar work ( Johnny Winter, Bob Margolin) and the complete band sound and groove ( in your head listen to all instruments together AND individually) of
MUDDY WATERS Hard Again

IMO, this is Top 5 all time best Chicago ( or any) Blues album ever made!
You must get this.

 

[Danb541]

Beano and Butterfield are great suggestions. To stick with

British blues I'd say this one.

 

[EspyHop]

Beano! or any other Bluesbreakers. Your pick Peter Greene, Mick Taylor, E.C.

Speaking of Peter Green, “Fleetwood Mac In Chicago” is my pick. Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer (doing Elmore James), and Buddy Guy.

 

[Danb541]

For some good dirty blues I'd go with this one. I think it's out of print. One of my all time favorite albums.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_King_(album)

 

[bumnote]

I just dont think in terms of ' learn every guitar lick' so much as listening to a certain phrasing style ( the note selection and ' melody ' being played), the rhythm, and guitar tones.

That said, I think you cannot go wrong by absorbing the guitar work ( Johnny Winter, Bob Margolin) and the complete band sound and groove ( in your head listen to all instruments together AND individually) of
MUDDY WATERS Hard Again

IMO, this is Top 5 all time best Chicago ( or any) Blues album ever made!
You must get this.

The lineup of that band is my all time favorite blues band ever. Those three albums are my favorites.

The way the tension builds on the songs on this album and the beautiful lack of showboating is brilliant IMO.
This album is the perfect example of playing ONLY what needs to be played for blues guitar, which is sadly a lost art.

 

[EsquireOK]

The thing about classic blues is that it wasn't produced for the album format. Almost any blues "album" worth mentioning wasn't originally conceived as a studio album. It's an after-the-fact collection of singles, sometimes with an extra track or two recorded to fill it out into a full length album. Even many later blues albums like Born Under a Bad Sign were just singles collections.

This is my issue with listing my favorite "albums." My list doesn't represent my true musical tastes, because my favorite music of all time ('50s and '60s R&B) was single-oriented music.

Now that that's out of the way, get a good collection or two by each of the following blues artists, and you'll have a good handle on the basic vocabulary:

Jimmy Reed (get the ...at Carnegie Hall album – not a live album, BTW)
Slim Harpo
Little Walter
Howlin' Wolf
John Lee Hooker
Freddie King
Albert King
Bo Diddly
B.B. King (the earlier the better)
Muddy Waters
Lightnin' Hopkins (get some acoustic and some electric)

There are a lot more...and "the sound" often had more to do with the label than with the individual artist...but those guys are the cream of the crop to me.

To answer the OP more directly, if it was one album, my suggestion would be Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall. It's not an extremely lead guitar oriented album, but it's got the groove, and some really interesting two and three (yes, three) guitar rhythm arrangements, the likes of which should be the foundation for any blues guitarist.

 

[Danb541]

a sample of the Red Devils for those who have not heard them.

 

[E5RSY]

With absolutely no hesitation...

 

[blowtorch]

 

[joebloggs13]

The Beano album would be the ONE. But Live At The Regal is such a seminal album that its importance cannot be dismissed. So that would be a close second for me.

 

[8trackmind]

Anything by Buddy Guy.

 

[jamesepowell]

Definitely not a one album thing, but I learned an awful lot of things from this one. I really like his tone on this album.