Chords for Albert King Guitar Licks | Reverb Learn to Play

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_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [F] _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ Hey everybody, this [Fm] is Jeff with Reverb, [Ab] and today I wanted to talk about [N] and show you
some licks by the great blues man, Mr.
Albert King.
Albert King is probably _ one of the best blues players of all time.
Just trying to copy his stuff and trying to get a vibrato anywhere near as good as his
will make you a better player.
Some things about Albert though that are very unorthodox and made him such an original was
first off he was left handed, and rather than restring the guitar, he would just flip it.
So everything was reversed and he would bend this way.
There also seems to be some mystery as to how Albert tuned the guitar.
Today I'm just going to adapt some Albert King licks into standard tuning.
Albert primarily used a Gibson Flying V and played Fender amps I imagine really loud until
he got them to break up.
But to get that sound today I don't have a Flying V available but I have a 77, my 77
Gibson Custom Les Paul, and I have a Thorpey Peacekeeper pedal with a little bit of gain
going through a Magnetone amp.
Another thing, you know if you're trying to mimic what Albert's doing is a lot of his
tone comes from the thumb.
You can hear the difference.
You can play the licks with a flat pick, here it would be with [Gm] a flat pick, _ _ _ _ but I think
Albert got a little more thump out of the thumb and a little more tone. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ And one of the great things about Albert is he could take three or four notes and make
a whole solo out of it and make it really interesting just with the amount of feel that
he put into it.
But one that I always hear him do that I like to do is, [Gm] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _
so I got my middle finger right
here on the 7th fret of the G string and I'm going to the 8th fret of the B string back
to the 7th for starters.
[B] And again trying to use my thumb as much as [Gm] possible. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bb] And trying to get that Albert vibrato, [Gb] which is challenging but very inspiring to try and [D] reach that.
_ _ And then after that I'm doing a [Dm] bend at the 8th fret of the high E string [Gm] and _ then I'm
coming down to the 6th and then back to the B string on the 8th fret. _
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_ Another thing that Albert does that's really cool is sometimes he'll be bending so hard
and he'll grab two notes.
You know this is a thing that you can hear copied by people like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie
Ray Vaughan, something like [Am] that.
_ _ [Ab] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [Dm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
[D] _ And it's a little tricky because I'm doing kind of a typical blues bend here but I'm
letting my ring finger grab the B string [A] and _ _ _ [Abm] _
then just dragging the bend down.
So it's [Gm] really got a nice rough sound to [E] it.
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Ab] _ _
[Gm] _ _ [Ab] _ And then he'd be known to do something like that once in a while too, come down instead
of just landing on a note, bend that note up [Dm] too. _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Another lick that I've kind of grabbed from Albert, and nobody really does it like Albert
but again it's fun trying, would be this one. _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ Now you know, that seems like a simple line but the feel that Albert puts into it, it
makes it so much more.
And it's just, all I'm doing is playing in the pentatonic, _ _ _ starting at the 8th [D] _ _ and I'm
going to the 7th on the G string, 8th on the B string, 7th on the G string, 5th and 3rd
on the G string and landing on the 5th fret of the D [G] string.
You put it together, _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ and again if Albert's in a different [Db] tuning that lick might come
across fingering wise different, but it totally works for standard tuning.
[Gm] _ And you can even add to it, [G] _ _ _ add a little tag on the end there.
So if you put all this [Gm] together, _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ [Db] _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ I hope these Albert [Gm] King licks have inspired you to try
some new things, and until next time. _ _