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Call Me The Breeze Lynyrd Skynyrd Guitar Lesson + Tutorial

blues Apr 04, 2023

In this post, I'll share with you a guitar lesson on how to play "Call Me The Breeze," as recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd. You may be wondering who originally wrote "Call Me the Breeze?" The original writer of this classic blues jam was American guitarist and singer-songwriter J.J. Cale.

"Call Me The Breeze" first appeared on Cale's 1972 debut album, Naturally, as the opening track. Cale's version has a soulful rhythm and blues-style guitar groove to it, and also features a lo-fi sounding drum machine.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's version takes the energy up a couple of notches with more driving guitar tones and horns.

In this article, I'll break down some key points to understanding the guitar groove and style used in this classic blues jam.

Call Me The Breeze Chords

To start off this "Call Me The Breeze" guitar lesson, you'll only need to know three chords to be able to play along to the entire song.

Now keep in mind, these three chords are the foundation and a level 1 approach, while the actual...

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John Lee Hooker’s Magical Open A Tuning For Blues Guitar

blues Mar 30, 2023

In this lesson, I'll be sharing with you how to play the groove to one of John Lee Hooker's best-known songs, "Boogie Chillen." To play this song, we'll be tuning to an open A tuning, and we'll be using a capo on the 2nd fret to move it up to B concert pitch.

Hailing from a Mississippi sharecropping family, Hooker learned to play blues guitar from his stepfather, and he rose to fame performing an electric style heavily influenced by Delta blues.

Now, you may be thinking what style of music is Boogie Chillen? Well this song has that exact deep Delta-style blues groove to it, and it's pretty tough to emulate, but I'll break down a number of the techniques and riffs you can use to get the sound.

What tuning is Boogie Chillen in?

Let's first talk about what tuning Boogie Chillen is in. The tuning is open A tuning. To get to an open A tuning from standard tuning, we'll need to adjust strings 4, 3, and 2 from our typical standard guitar tuning. The notes from low to high for...

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B.B. King Blues Licks Made Easy

blues Mar 28, 2023

Today I want to bust a myth floating around out there in the guitar world about guitar solos! For some reason a lot of players, especially ones that are newer to improvising often think, “Well to really be doing it, I have to be able to play up and down my entire guitar neck”, or “I'm not really a soloist until I've mastered all the positions of my pentatonic scales, and blues scales etc.”

Maybe they had a teacher tell them in a lesson, well if you want to solo you’ve got to learn more theory first. I love how often guitar players speak of music theory as if it's some magic pill. Like “oh yeah just learn more theory, and then it will all make sense, and you’ll be able to solo.”

While that stuff isn’t going to hurt you, and yes, if you want to become a complete zen master musical guru than by all means study it all.

However, is it necessary to know a lot if you just want to start playing some licks or trying a...

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#1 MUST-KNOW Scale For Blues Guitarists

blues Mar 26, 2023

Do you find yourself wondering how to get a bluesy sound out of your guitar?
Are you trying to learn to play like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, or Eric Clapton?

Well if so this lesson can help!

In this guitar lesson, I am going to share with you the #1 scale that you need to know for playing blues guitar. 

Blues Scale Theory

The scale we are going to cover here is the blues scale, so let's first start by talking a bit about the theory and how this scale is constructed. The blues scale is a six note scale, and to form this scale we can start on any note, and play a sequence of other notes after it and this will build the scale. The intervals of this scale go like this: 

  • 1 (root note)
  • b3 (minor third)
  • 4 (perfect fourth)
  • b5 (diminished fifth)
  • 5 (perfect fifth)
  • b7 (minor seventh)

Now it's important to note: that when guitarists typically refer to the blues scale what they actually mean is the minor blues scale. So this is what we are building here, and when you use these...

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