play the blues

I have 40 plus years experience playing the blues. It’s not something that can be taught. It has to come from the heart & soul. No one but you can feel what you have been through. Take that and wail with it , and as you grow and mature so will your playing. For What It’s Worth, Danny Lee Shean.

This goal is really special to me. More like a dream than a goal and I feel like it is a dream-come-true.

I feel like I have achieved this goal. I know I can and will get much better but if my arms were cut off in some freakish accident I would be content that I had played the blues in a cafe, to a live audience (on more than one occasion!!)
I will continue performing regularly for as long as I can. I feel like the lifestyle change that I was seeking has been reached in this area.

It feels incredibly satisfying to have done this!

I’ve joined a blues/bluegrass band! We play every Friday night at a local cafe. I’ve done 2 gigs with them now and its great! I mostly play acoustic bass guitar but I pick up a banjo every now and then. I’ll try to get up to speed on my acoustic guitar playing but for now the bass is great fun. A couple of weeks back I did a 30 minute set at the Open Mic at the Upfront Club (look it up on You Tube if you’re interested) with the singer/guitarist from our new group. It was a bit shaky at times but we had a real blast with it anyway. That’s been the best part of doing these Friday night gigs, every now and then we just go into a blues jam mode and let rip… its so much fun and liberating to be able to improvise with an audience present. This has been one of the greatest developments in my life to date.

I ran into my mate Wazza on Friday afternoon and agreed to bring my guitar along to the Open Mic night so I could do a bit of rhythm guitar for him again. Just did a reggae number again but used some 4-string chords to give it a crisper sound. This time we were really careful with the ending, watched each other closely and tied it off really beautifully… I got one of those peaceful “wow” moments. I wasn’t anywhere near as nervous this time and didn’t have any drinks before going on, but didn’t get the same level of euphoria afterwards either.

I didn’t realise it before but he plays a lot of blues. He plays it with a very hard-rock style, but the blues is the blues. I’m not sure how well Billy Thorpe is known outside of Australia. He was a one of the biggest rockers in Australia in the 70’s. A real wild-child.

I played rhythm guitar on stage, in front of an audience, at an Open Mic night in Maleny last night! First time I’ve performed since I was 15, first time ever performing with a guitar and the first time my guitar has been played for a public audience!

We played a reggae number, followed by some 12-Bar Blues. It all happened so fast I only have snippets of memory from the whole thing. It was over in about 10 minutes but I’m still on a high from it!
I didn’t think I would be performing for another 6-12 months but the opportunity presented itself to play rhythm for a guy that I met recently. I’ve seen him play and we both love the blues so I offered to back him up with rhythm guitar and he said OK. I was nervous until I got a beer under the belt and then it was all good from there.
Feels like a mental barrier has been broken down.

and they are so worth it! My guitar lead work is improving after some tips from the teach. I’m struggling to accept that less is more when it comes to solo-ing. Now that I’m very familiar with the typical blues pattern, I hear blues in songs that I’ve known for years and never thought about as blues before. Its such a simple form but so damn groovy.

I’m finding it pretty easy to find the key and from there its easy to play the basic chord progression.

I’m comfortable working out the key quickly and playing rhythm guitar along with my blues CD’s. The structure of the early blues stuff is sooo simple and yet I lurve it. I just a film clip about some guy that is an apple and he asks God to make him a man. He then realises that humans are fkt up and he decides he wants to be an apple again. Apparently the grass is not always greener.

the truth in playing an instrument. You don’t work an instrument, you play it. The joy is in playing, not in working.

(Deadwood quote removed. I get the feeling that this is a PG-rating site… maybe Deadwood quotes are not universally appreciated. I, however, think its a f’ing great show).