What Blues Legends Do You Emulate?

Roy Buchanon.....!

Used to be a huge blues guitar fan but one day woke up completely bored with it! I like playing it but can't take more than a couple tunes before I sign out.

Roy at least has some weird quirky country licks and ideals.

 

If I’m fairly typical it’s because I can’t emulate John lee hooker. I’ve tried. I don’t really emulate Eric either but I sound closer to him than anyone else.

Love John lee hooker.


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Lightnin' Hopkins and Ry Cooder.

1969, Hopkins lived a few blocks from the University of Houston campus and played on campus all the time. Dances, frat parties, coffee house.
When he played the coffee house he would always take a break outside for 'musician's lubricant' and I was able to chat with him a few times.
He doesn't fit the stereotype of a guitar god, but he is a superb musician that is just plain fun to hear.
I was able to sit close enough to reach out and fret chords on his J-50.
It was a treat and inspired me.
A good friend who lived in Houston in the '60s would hire Hopkins for 'rent parties.' He paid $25 and a bottle of whiskey. I believe times were pretty lean for old blues players at the time.

Ry Cooder, whew... I've seen him a few times and just love him.
"That's how I want to play!"
Yeah, right. I had no idea how good he is. I mean, it doesn't sound that difficult, right?
Woof.

Dogster

 

I would have voted for Lightnin Hopkins, Robert Pete Williams & Howling Wolf if they had been on the list. Robert Johnson & Charley Patton not being listed seems weird to me. I generally prefer Delta Blues over post WWII electric blues. Of these choices, I voted for the Alberts(Collins & King). John Lee Hooker would have been another consideration.

 

Those guys are all way too good for me to even compare myself. I am at month nine on guitar.

 

I'd say :

Albert Collins - his ice pick sound and cutting riffs. (Ice Pickin')
Matt Murphy - his mellow fluid Chicago Blues riffs. (The Blues Brother's band - live in Montreux)
And certainly others, maybe, that I don't know the name...

A+!

 

SRV... simply because I was 16 when Texas Flood came out therefore he became my hero of the genre. If I have to play any blues, that's the grab bag of tones and licks I reach for.

I'm not a blues aficionado... I appreciate it, and I am aware of the players - but not all the idiosyncrasies of each.

 

Emulation is not about being a perfect reproduction

 

As you keep it go'n

 

Matt Murphy! Seen in Sloppy Joes in Key West, late 80's. The man could play.

 

Danny Gatton was an amazing blues player ... And country player ... And jazz player ... And rock player ...

 

I've have never had the ability to play fast - I play more rhythm based lead guitar than pretty much all of the people I jam with. I have to work hard and practice if I want to improve (which I don't), unlike some people who are much more natural players than me. As time goes on I seem to channel my inner Keef more and more, rooting my playing in the rhythm side more than ever.

In terms of blues, I realised very early on that I was more Jimmy Vaughan than Stevie (one of my idols), so have tried to adjust accordingly. Lots of single note and cutting riffs (like JLV and Albert Collins) That being said, I seem to have taken a lot of shuffles, bends, double stops, turnarounds and fills from SRV, playing with a 'texas swing' edge (unintentionally) - if I am honest, it's subconcious at this point and I can't seem to shake it. My wife recently said however that she recognised a good few licks I play from our Albert King records - BUSTED!

I listened to and played a lot of Clapton (Blues Breakers, Derek and the Dominos era) when I was younger, and again, seem to have taken the bits and pieces - mainly things he took from Freddie King.

If I am honest, my playing is kind of a mess atm, coming back from years of not taking it seriously and being in a rut - I'm trying to play new things to break it up.

 

To the extent that I can swing it, Mississippi John Hurt.

 

Clapton for me.

 

BB and Peter Green (should be in the poll!!) mostly, Cray and Clapton some. I don’t have the mojo to want to play really rough aggressive blues anymore, which I only sometimes tried to do when I was a young guy. So I try to play em as sweet and soulful as I can. If I had BB’s heavy vibrato, I’d probably sound a LOT like BB. I don’t have half a percent of the chops of ANY of these guys, but I have a small amount of taste and feel and that’s the direction it runs these days...