These videos are bonus content related to the Holiday 2013 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.
Last month we looked at the legacy of Chicago guitar legend Earl Hooker, a player regarded by many of his peers as the greatest in a city overflowing with talent. But while Hooker’s mastery of standard electric blues was unquestionable, his renown as a slide guitarist was even greater.
As a teenager, Hooker studied with electric slide pioneer Robert Nighthawk, himself a disciple of Chicago acoustic guitar kingpin Tampa Red, renowned for his delicate, single-note melodies and wide, expressive vibrato.
Nighthawk’s 1949 take on Tampa Red’s “Sweet Black Angel” was an electric slide masterpiece, and Hooker’s own version (“Sweet Angel”) in 1953 proved that by 24 years of age he was already in a league with his mentor.
It’s a soloing strategy that T-Bone Walker, B.B. King and Albert King all used, and will instantly make your blues solos sound more pro – learn parallel pentatonics and you will set your playing free
“For me, it’s not enough to play an idea once and then move on. I’d rather develop my initial phrase and then morph it into 10 different, thematically connected ones”: Jared James Nichols shows you how to use call-and-response blues phrasing
