Hello good people of the internet, this is Jed from Your Guitar Academy! Today I'm going to be showing you one of my favorite Blues Licks from one of my favorite players, Mr. Albert King. This phrase or lick is taken from a live recording of Albert King at the Fillmore East, in a song called "Blues Power." Let's talk about what Albert King was playing and how he played. I think that's important for this.
Firstly, it's worth mentioning that he tuned his guitar down by three tones, so if we were playing an A blues, he'd be playing in the C position. This enabled him to get some really large bends. For example, if he was playing the minor third in a blues, he would bend from that up to the fifth, and then he's got all those notes in between. It gives it a specific and distinctive sound. You don't have to do this of course, but it's really good to know.
He was also using his thumb to play the strings. For example, if I'm playing with a pick and I hit a note, it's got a certain tone to it. Then if I try and play with my fingers and my thumb, using skin to hit the string, there's an element added. It's kind of meatier, and there's more tone. Just another thing to consider, as he was using his thumb to play a lot of phrases.
One thing with Albert King was he played with his guitar plugged straight into, I imagine, some kind of Fender amplifier. So, he would probably have that thing turned right up, playing with high-end frequencies and volumes. He also used the volume on his guitar to come down and get a sweeter tone.
Think about it as having two levels of guitar sound. If we've got an overdriven tone turned up all the way, the only thing we're going to manipulate is the volume knob on the guitar. You can experiment with bringing it down to seven or five to get a different sound.
Now, we're going to be in the first minor pentatonic box shape in the key of G, dealing with just the B string and the top E string. Use the tab below as well as the scale diagram to help learn the lick. This phrase is great because you can play it anywhere in a 12-bar Blues progression. You can experiment with variations and use it over the one, four, or five chords.
Thanks very much. I hope you enjoyed this blog article on Albert King! If you love this style of blues playing and want to dive a whole lot deeper, then I recommend getting started with our Blues Essentials Level 1 course, but if you simply want to explore the blues courses, then check them out here. We also have some incredible Blues Player Studies, like Freddie King, B.B.King, Eric Clapton, and more!
Remember that you can also get access to every single course, a pathway of learning, mentor training and more via our Guitar Club subscription. I'm looking forward to speaking to you all again in another blog post and video, see you then, and have fun playing some blues!