50 Blues-Rock Licks You MUST Know Introduction When I think about guitar heroes the first person that

comes to mind is Jimmy Page. You can picture him, Sunburst Les Paul strung around his kneecaps, dragon suit, wall of Marshall amps behind him. (Actually, that's the screen saver on my computer!) The king of blues-rock and the reason I picked up the guitar. That image personifies the genre. I have studied jazz and classical guitar but I always go back to blues rock, I love how players like Page, Gibbons, Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Van Halen, and others melded the root feeling of the blues and supercharged it. It always gets me going and to me, that's what guitar is all about! In this course I pick out some of my favorite blues infused rock licks, tricks, and progressions that have served me well for many years. The licks are not in any particular order so feel free to pick and choose. I also bring in some of my favorite ideas from Michael Schenker, David Grissom, Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa, and others. So stop reading this and let's get into some playing! Schenker Lick 1 Here is a great lick that extends some tried and true pentatonic licks into something a little different. One of my favorite guitar players is Michael Schenker. The original guitarist in the Scorpions and UFO, Schenker is a master of phrasing and control. He like Angus Young has a great ability to take what may appear to be a basic lick and make it sound fresh. Classic Schenker tracks are Lights Out, Rock Bottom, Only You can Rock Me. I highly recommend the Strangers In The Night CD by UFO. Michael is on fire! Grissom's Grip Lick 2 I have had the opportunity to both play and teach with David Grissom, man that guy can play. He is one of those players who just grabs you and shows you who's boss. His mix of blues, country, jazz, and rock makes for a truly unique player. This lick utilizes the open E string as a drone adding some very cool overtones, and an added dimension to the lick. So plug in that humbucker and crank that Marshall and dig in. Pull-Off Show-Off Lick 3 Whenever I play this lick on a gig or clinic, people often ask me what the heck it was, so here it is. This lick is really just an E minor blues scale broken up across the open strings. Why does it work? Well all your open strings are contained in an E minor pentatonic scale, so let's use them. Guitar great Robben Ford plays a lick very similar to this in his version of the Howlin' Wolf classic Spoonful. This one should get you thinking about those open strings. Bend It Like Beck Lick 4 Ok, Jeff Beck admits that this lick really came from keyboardist Jan Hammer. It is a classic lick that takes you right back to the Wired album, that's right, I said it - Album. It's pretty tricky but well worth it because it is such a head-turner. I remember the first time I heard it, I was a teen, I was flummoxed and I had to know what it was. Fortunately my close friend and spectacular guitarist Chris Amelar already knew this secret and was happy to share it. Jan Hammer's style of keyboard playing is very guitaristic, right down to his use of the keytar!

Hybrid He Do That? Lick 5 Sorry for the bad play on words. Hybrid picking is just a fancy way of saying that we are using both our pick and fingers on this lick. I highly recommend that you spend some time on this technique as it is extremely helpful. It also opens up many new licks that would have been extremely difficult with just a pick. The technique is most closely associated with country players and chickin' pickin'. This cool lick gets you started and sounds awesome on a G7 chord. Bend 'em While Ya Got 'em Lick 6 Here is one right out of Jeff Beck's live version of Freeway Jam from the Jeff Beck with The Jan Hammer Group album. Beck is great on this album, get it! The lick is basically a repeated quick bend but it is not so easy to get. One of the biggest problems is string noise so really check your muting on both the left and right hands. We will revisit this technique a few times in this course. Big Bend Lick 7 I love this move, it's got Jimi and Beck all over it. I find from personal experience that as guitar players we usually bend strings up a whole step. Now this makes sense because our favorite scale as rockers is the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale has no half steps so we stick to the obvious b7 to root bend. But, the pentatonic scale does contain some minor 3rds. the root to the b3rd, and the 5th to the b7th. These are some very cool sounding notes to use, just ask Jimi, Jimmy, Eric, Jeff, Eddie, you get the idea. Funky Time Lick 8 Time to get your funk on. It is really up to any blues rock guitarist to spend some time with a James Brown record. I suggest James Brown 20 All Time Greatest Hits as a great starting point. If you listen to all the great blues rock bands they had a groove. The Stones, Zep, Sabbath, you may not associate them with funk but they groove! Let's take Zeppelin's The Crunge for example, there is a funk tune for you by a blues rock band. If you want to get more into funk playing I would check out TrueFire's 50 Funk Guitar Licks You Must Know by Chris Buono. Good stuff in there. Rippin' Pentatonic Lick 9 The pentatonic scale is the guitar players best friend. I can barely think of a solo that doesn't use one extensively in the blues rock genre. It is the sound of the blues, but did you know that it is also used extensively in music from many other cultures such as Japan, India, Greece, West Africa, Indonesian gamelan music, as well as a favorite of mine, the Scottish Highland bagpipe. The reason why the pentatonic scale (there are a few) is so popular is that there are no dissonant intervals present. All the notes can be played in unison and sound tonal. Pretty cool huh?

Tuckered Out Lick 10 Sometimes playing over something happy can be much more difficult than something darker and I wish I had the answer as to why. The chord progression here is basically "Can't You See?" by the Marshall Tucker band. Southern Rock? Yup, that cool happy sounding, bluesy, rock, country, mix that if you're not used to can get you into a world of trouble come solo time. This lick introduces the dominant pentatonic scale. What's that? Well take a minor pentatonic scale and raise the 3rd. So we have R, 3, 4, 5, b7. I have handed you the rod, now we learn how to fish. EJ Saves the Day Lick 11 Here is a typical Eric Johnson style pentatonic lick. By typical I mean, super cool, very difficult, and fast. I do like this one because the fingering pattern lends itself to playing it quickly once muscle memory takes over. Like anything in life, take it slow, get the fingering down, and have fun. Free Myx Lick 12 Sometimes playing over one chord can be more difficult than playing over many, especially as the rhythm guitarist. In this example I am borrowing the feel of Freeway Jam by Jeff Beck. The tune is largely one chord, G7. So what do you do? Banging on a G7 chord won't really make you too popular with the other guys in the band. So here are some ideas largely using the G mixolydian scale. This tune is basically called a modal vamp, if this sparks your interest look into the modal period of jazz by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Down in the Dirt Lick 13 I love a nasty blues rock lick, you know the kind, the ones that make you make the "something smells in here" face. Here is one of those licks. It is definitely from the Angus Young school of blues rock guitar. Let's talk about Angus Young, man is he great. I am a big believer in learning other people's material as a way to improve my own playing. This is actually a time honored tradition, you learn from the masters. So get out Highway To Hell or Back in Black (depending if you are a Bonn Scott or Brian Johnson fan) and get to it. I find Angus an endless source of inspiration. Plus AC/DC has some of the best riff in rock and roll. Slick E Lick 14 Guitar is a very cool instrument as we know, what makes it especially cool (and frustrating) is that we can play the same note in many positions. This lick takes full advantage of the blue note of the E major blues scale. When we are discussing major blues don't forget the formula is R, 2, b3, 3, 5, 6. The trick of this lick is that I am doubling that b3rd on both the 2nd and 3rd strings. This is something sax players do a lot.

Teja's Lick 15 This is one of the coolest little moves, I never get tired of playing it or hearing it. I first heard it from Eric Johnson as many of us did I believe, then after hearing more Austin based players it seems it's in the water down there. The 3rd of a chord is really the most important, it tells us if the chord is major or minor. In the blues, we want the sound in between those two. Not quite the flat 3rd not quite the natural 3rd. That ambiguity is at the core of the blues. Here we are playing the b3rd and bending it up slightly almost to the natural 3rd while laying on the root an octave below. Tasty Bits Lick 16 Being an interesting rhythm guitar player requires as much attention as does being an interesting lead player. What is really cool is that the more you work on both, the more the line between the two diminishes. So I find the old question "are you a lead or rhythm guitarist?" more and more absurd. I usually just answer "yes". A blues is a great way to experiment with some cool rhythm guitar ideas and phrasing, this is usually referred to as "comping". Like most musicians, I found out the hard way that I had spent too much time trying to be a great soloist and realized I didn't really know what to do the 90% rest of a tune! Double the Fun Lick 17 A double stop is violin term, it means to play two strings at once. This lick can be done with pick and fingers or just your fingers, sometimes I will do both. I really love this one because it is so useful as a lead line or a rhythm part. So really try to use it in both situations, bring it up an octave, change keys, take it through a blues progression, experiment! The funny thing is that once you get this one together, you will hear it all over the place in some form or another. Thumb Thang Lick 18 I first discovered using the thumb on my fret hand as a kid when I realized that I could make a D/F# chord much easier by using my thumb for the F#. Eureka! To bump it up I then watched Hendrix make full use of his thumb on barre chords. It wasn't until I saw the classic Eric Johnson performance on Austin City Limits did I know you could use the thumb as a pedal point for some very cool licks. I highly recommend the DVD of the Johnson performance from 1988, the clothes and haircuts may be 80's but the playing is timeless. On the Up and Up Lick 19 Rhythmic displacement is a fancy way of saying don't start on a down beat. I learned this idea from my friend and spectacular guitar player Pat Bergeson. Then I realized that just about every other great guitar player would do it. Here is a simple exercise, take a lick you know well and start it on an up beat. Really listen to how it changes the feel of the lick over all. It can add a forward motion to the lick that can really make the simplest of licks sound fresh and cool.

Southern Comfort Lick 20 One of the hallmarks of Southern Rock is the use of the major tonality, more specifically Mixolydian. Mixolydian is the scale that is used over a dom7 chord and it creates a happy yet bluesy quality. Many people associate this sound with jam bands and Southern rock classics like Jessica, Blue Sky, and of course Sweet Home Alabama. A cool thing to see is that the major pentatonic scale can be found inside of a mixolydian scale so, wherever you can use mixo you can use the major pentatonic based on the same root. Play It Straight Lick 21 When we play a blues we usually want to give it a swing feel. That Happy Trails feel bomba deeda, bomba deeda, bomba deeda feel. Well let's play it straight this time. So to get technical we have the swing eighth feel which we most often use on a blues, and a straight eighth note feel. Playing a blues like this can really change up an evening for the listener. It also makes us play differently, it is more of a rock feel which I love. Feels Good To Me Lick 22 This lick is similar to something Michael Schenker would play. This lick is cool on a number of levels, first it is a mix of major and minor blues scales and cool bends, but to me the coolest part is the phrasing. Listen to how the notes sit in the feel. Schenker is a master of phrasing and note placement. His lines have a great flow to them and that is why I love his playing so much. This lick is similar to what he plays on Feels Like A Good Thing off of the first MSG record. His playing on that recording is fantastic. Slidin' Sixths Lick 23 The interval of the 6th is one of the most useful and common in blues. The cool thing about it and why it sounds so good is that it is an inverted 3rd. What? Let's look at it, a major 3rd above C is E, a major 6th above E is C. Pretty cool and extremely useful. I can't stress enough memorizing your 6ths on the fingerboard, they will provide you with plenty of mileage and increase your understanding of the guitar. So while you are at it, practice all your intervals! Pedal Patter Lick 24 One of my favorite organ licks is when someone like Jimmy Smith pedals away on a note while changing notes above. I wish I could do it as fast as an organ player, but I'll keep on working at it. Come to think of it Danny Gatton could do it. In this lick I take the basic keyboard lick and optimize it for the guitar on an A7 chord. It's a hybrid picking lick and a great exercise. Badge of Honor Lick 25 I like to borrow licks from other songs and change up the feel. For example this lick is really from Badge by Cream but I mutated it to fit over this chord progression. Both are mixolydian and in the same key of D. It's a great exercise to mess around with this idea. For example, take a simple solo like Cream's Strange Brew and try to play it over a different feel. I think you will like the results.

Shake It! Lick 26 I love Angus Young. His tone, approach, phrasing, vibrato, and control over the guitar always impresses me. In a way he is such a simple old school player based in the blues, but he has a way of making it his own. Even when he plays an old style blues lick he makes it sound fresh. Like many other players, I hear a lot of old Eric Clapton in his playing. Can you blame him? I'm Bad Lick 27 Billy Gibbons is a force of nature and an encyclopedia of knowledge. Heck, he is in that encyclopedia! Truly one of the great American blues rock guitarists, he is a king of phrasing and groove. Although he has been a great player through out his career, I am a big fan of the early ZZ Top recordings. You can get all those recordings on a compilation called 6 Pack. Hey, you have a birthday coming up don't you? JC Goes to Chicago Lick 28 One of my favorite ZZ Top tunes is Jesus Just Left Chicago. I chose to put the rhythm guitar part in this course because it has so much cool stuff to steal. Most notably, he is in standard tuning but we drop our A string down to G. This is a neat trick because the song is in G and it allows us to take advantage of the sound of open G tuning but we can still solo normally on the rest of the strings. Very cool. Chicago Bound Lick 29 Okay, so we have the rhythm to Jesus Just Left Chicago, now let's check out the intro riff. Once again our A string is tuned down to G giving us a cool open bass note to play off of. ZZ Top recently released a DVD called Double Down Live. It has two concerts, one from the early 80's and a more recent one. To see Billy in his prime, the 80's concert is amazing. Just a note, on the dvd he does not tune his A string down, but on the studio recording he does, so no emails please! Let It Rip! Lick 30 We all need some impressive licks. I like to stockpile them so I can pull them out when needed. I like this one a lot because it uses some overtones, a cool slidey lick, and sounds huge! I stole the idea for the intro from a Jake E. Lee solo from Badlands. I always thought he was a cool player from his days with Ozzy through Badlands who I think are one of the most underrated blues rock bands. Anyway, take a look at this lick and see that it can work on many different levels. Chuck Berry Lick 31 Chuck Berry's influence cannot be overrated, this opening lick is right from Johnny B Goode. Angus Young channeled him for the intro to the Highway To Hell Solo. I am a fan of Berry's and I recommend his greatest hit collection. Rock and Roll Music, Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene, and You Never Can Tell are some great examples.

The Mighty Wind Lick 32 Here is an example of how we can lift a lick and place it somewhere else perfectly. The lick is of course from Wind Cries Mary by Hendrix but decided to play it over a different feel and chord progression. It is kind of fun on a gig to do this, usually some other guitar geek like us will catch it and give you a little look. I love those moments, it shows that people are listening, and more importantly, you made a connection to another person through music. That's what it's all about. DUI Lick 33 Here is a classic ZZ Top tune called Arrested For Driving While Blind from the Tejas album. It is the first full chorus of the solo and I love the way he outlined the chord progression of the blues by bouncing between the root and the b7 of each chord. Add in a neat little chromatic note on the turnaround and you have a classic must know lick. Slow Down There! Lick 34 Playing behind the beat or laying back are two expressions for a looser feel that is essential to blues playing, well any kind of playing actually unless you strictly play polkas. This lick is a great way to work that up, I physically think about relaxing when playing a lick like this and I find it helps. Bendway Lick 35 Bending strings is one of the coolest and most unique aspects of the guitar. They add an element of expression to a note that sets a mood, much like vibrato. In this lick I am looking at some bends available in the Am pentatonic scale. As an exercise, try bending a note of the pentatonic scale to the next note in the scale. If you find the bend to be too tough, try it in a different position and that may make things much easier. EVH Move Lick 36 I was driving in the car the other day and I'm The One from Van Halen I came on, man I almost forgot how amazing a player Eddie is. I said almost, but you know how it is, you don't listen to someone for a while and then you hear them out of the blue and the genius jumps out at you. As we know Eddie's chops make him quite a daunting player to dig into, that's why I chose this lick and slowed it down a bit. Often the trick to a lick is the fingering and that is definitely the case here. Do me a favor and put on Van Halen I today, it is as good as you remember it. Taking It Out Lick 37 Let's add some chromaticism to our playing. The term chromatic means a note or notes outside of a scale. Diatonic means a note or notes within a scale. For example the note Ab is not in a C mixolydian scale (CDEFGABb) so it is chromatic. The cool thing is that a chromatic note falls between the whole steps in a scale, so if we add an Ab to the C major scale we have G, Ab, A, Bb. That gives us a series of half steps that we normally think of when we hear the term chromatic, it is also the chromatic note we will use on this cool lick.

Minor Mellow Lick 38 Let's take a look at a minor blues with a hint of jazz. The progression is a basic 12 blues except all of the chords are minor. Some famous minor blues are "The Thrill is Gone" by BB King, "Since I've Been Loving You" by Led Zeppelin, "Chitlins Con Carne" by Kenny Burrell (you may know the SRV version), and "Dirty Pool" by Stevie Ray Vaughan to name a few. In this example I jazz it up a bit by using some cool voicings that I learned from John Coltrane's pianist McCoy Tyner that work great in many styles of music. Waterfall Lick 39 Hendrix came from outer space, I am convinced of it. The first Experience album came out in 1967 which was an amazing year for music as we all know, Cream, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, etc. But Jimi was something else, he sounded like no one, he looked like no one, and he scared the hell out of every one. In his short life he changed music and guitar forever. 40 years after his death his presence is as strong as ever. He is well known for his pyrotechnics but his ballad playing is just as amazing. On this lick I am borrowing the chord progressing from "May This Be Love" from one of my favorite Hendrix style licks. Smokey Water Lick 40 Ritchie Blackmore is one of the greatest players in rock history, IMO. His mix of blues, classical, jazz, and rock was the prototype for players like Yngwie Malmsteen. His riffs are some of the coolest ever, in fact Smoke on The Water may be the coolest guitar riff ever. That strat through a cranked Marshall with those 4ths. It is the definition of riff rock. This lick is a stand out in a solo that is perfect. If you are not familiar with Mr. Blackmore I suggest you check out Machine Head by Deep Purple first. I am also a big Rainbow fan. Now I want to dig out my white strat. Roll That Stone Lick 41 Okay, this is a direct lift from Robin Trower's tune Too Rolling Stoned from the great Bridge of Sighs album. It is such a great riff and the groove is a blast to solo over. This lick outlines a C7 chord, it uses the thumb over the top of the neck, sliding 6ths, double stops, and some wicked vibrato. Really concentrate on having the groove sit right because that's what's it's all about. I Can See Lick 42 Here is one of my favorite licks, it is a mix of both major and minor pentatonic scales with an added blue note. Let's take a closer look, the scale formula would be R, 2, b3, 3, 4, b5, 5, 6, b7. Wow, we have a series of chromatic notes from the 2nd through the 5th. That is a lot of information and some really cool sounding stuff. The scale may sound strange playing it by itself but if you learn how to manage those chromatic notes you will be quite happy. For us blues rockers I would say this is the scale you should spend much of your time on.

Sixth Sense Lick 43 Here come those pesky 6ths again, man they show up everywhere. In this lick we are sliding the major 6th interval to outline a Cmin7 chord. It sounds a bit strange at first but the more you listen to it, the more it settles in. Even though this lick outlines a Cmin7 chord it can be played on a C7 chord and sound just as cool. Jimi's Mood Lick 44 There are certain songs in your life that change everything, give you chills, and basically blow your mind. One of the top on my list is "Machine Gun" by Jimi Hendrix from the Band of Gypsys album. That tune inspired a legion of guitar players and its impact is still felt today. The song and solo have everything, vibe, emotion, tension and release, chops, great band, and of course, Jimi. This lick is a bit more of a modern yet humble take on that vibe Jimi created on New Years Eve in 1970. Intervallic Ladder Lick 45 I love taking a basic scale and trying to look at it from another angle. In this lick I am using a Dm pentatonic scale and playing an interval from within the scale. I am not thinking bluesy at all, but that is what is cool to me. Here I am taking a scale that is typically associated with the blues and making it sound a little different. This isn't anything new, but when I first came across it, it sure was new to me! Triple Stop Lick 46 I love me some good ol' southern rock, especially Skynyrd and the Allmans. Here is a classic southern rock lick that actually has its roots on country music, it's a pedal steel lick. If we listen to the classic country players we hear them all the time. Some great country players to check out are Albert King, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Gatton, and Brent Mason. Skip That String Lick 47 Intervallic leaps can add some spice to your playing as we see in this lick that I stole from Jeff Beck. For fun try playing a scale fingering and skip the string in between. For example, to play a minor pentatonic scale play the notes on the 6th string, skip the 5th string, and continue the scale on the 4th string. Not only is this a great finger exercise, it opens up your ears to sounds and licks that may not be in your vocabulary. Keep It Open Lick 48 Open string licks are a staple of guitar playing, because they are so guitaristic. Try experimenting with open string licks with less obvious keys. There are many keys that have an E A D G B E in them, and as a result we can utilize any of those open strings on those licks.

The Staple Lick 49 Here is a must know blues rock staple, this lick is as old as the blues itself and still as cool. Here I am using it the way Eric Clapton did on Spoonful. Really dig into this one with the pick so the strings snap. Don't be afraid to keep on repeating it as well, it's one of those licks that seems the more you play it the cooler it gets. Chromatica Lick 50 Here is a classic lick that mixes both the major and minor blues scales. If you notice I play C, C#, D, Eb, and E in a row. This sounds great over a dom7 chord, but whatever you do, don't play this lick over a minor chord! Dom7 chords can accept more musical information much more easily than minor chords. We can play a b3 on a dom chord because it sounds cool and bluesy. But if we play a natural 3rd on a minor chord it sounds really bad. So be careful! 50 Blues-Rock Licks You MUST Know Conclusion Thanks for checking out my course, I really appreciate it. My biggest piece of advice to you as a player is to get out and use these licks in the real world! Get in a band, jam with some friends, and go to blues jams, anything to play music with real people. Play along tracks are a great tool for working out ideas and getting licks together but they can never replace interacting with people. Isn't that what music is all about? This is especially true with blues-rock, think about all those great extended jams Hendrix did. That was about the interaction between Jimi, his guitar, the band, the audience, and the universe. Those things cannot happen in the vacuum of the practice room. That being said, those things may not happen on the stage unless you spent time in the practice room. As always, please feel free to contact me at JeffMcerlain.com. Please join my mailing list and bevy of other social media outlets I am a part of. I hope you enjoyed this course and hope to see you on stage soon!