Chords for Jamming The Blues taught by Fred Sokolow

[N] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Hi, I'm [A] Fred [E] Sokolow, and this is a [Ab] lesson on jamming [Bb] the blues.
[A] I'm going to try to [Bb] show you skills that you [A] need to be in a blues jam session playing either acoustic guitar or electric guitar.
I'll switch from [Gbm] one to the other at some [Bb] point.
And blues is really a [A] language.
You know, if [Ab] you know how to speak the language of the blues, you can get together and jam with [A] somebody on the other side
of the planet who doesn't speak [Ab] English, and
you can sound like you've been [A] rehearsing [G] for months, you know, in a [Abm] garage band or something.
So there's lots [A] of different skills involved.
It involves knowing how to play
solos, but also how to back [Gb] up different [A] kinds of blues tunes and
[E] _ _ play [Abm] different kinds of rhythms [A] and stuff like that.
So we're going to go over all those things.
Let's start by [Ab] just tuning up.
Okay, here's your low E string, your sixth [E] string,
_ _ _ [A] your fifth string A, _ _ _ _ _ your fourth [D] string D,
_ _ _ _ third string [G] G,
_ _ _ _ [B] second string B,
_ _ _ and your high [E] E string, first string.
[A] _
_ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _
Now, one of the most popular keys for playing the [E] blues, especially for acoustic guitar [Gb] players, [Bb] is the key of E.
[A] But you know [B] what?
It was true for [F] a lot of electric guitar [Bb] players, too.
Lightnin' Hopkins,
[A] _ [Bb] Jimmy Reed, big boy Arthur [Ab] Crudup, the guy that [A] Elvis got some of his first songs from,
_ [G] and lots of other [A] players.
Kate Mouth Brown is [Dbm] another one.
Practically lived in the key of E.
There were some E blues [Bb] licks that they really [Ab] favored,
and if [A] the key of E wasn't [Abm] the best key for them to sing in, [D] they would use a capo,
capo up [Ab] three frets or five frets or whatever, and still use their [A] E licks.
So _
[D] we should take a [A] look at the key of E and what some of those licks are, and
we'll do it [Ab] with a, after I show you some of the licks,
we'll [G] do it with a Jimmy Reed [Ab] song.
Jimmy Reed was real popular in the 50s and 60s, and the Stones [Abm] and a bunch of other rock bands
[G] stole a lot of his licks, and
he had a bunch of hits,
[Ab] and he was one of these guys that [Gb] always played in the [E] key of E, [Ab] or at least using the [Gb] E shapes,
even if he used the capo.
[A] So one thing about the key of E [G] is you got this hammer on the third string.
You know, it's an E minor, that's an [Em] E major.
So when you [Ab] hammer on there, you get a real bluesy sound, because the blues uses some of the minor [Em] notes as well as the major.
[E] _ And then you've [G] got this bent string here [Em] on the first string.
There's the [E] second string, that's a seventh.
_ [Em] _ _ So these kind of licks.
[E] We've also got this D seventh up two frets, _
_ [Em] _ _ _ [E] and [A] you can use that for a turnaround at the end of [Bb] the [Abm] thing.
_ [A] _ _ Just moving the [E] D seventh shape [A] down [D] one fret at a time and [E] ending on the E.
_ [Am] Typical turnaround, the turnaround is [Abm] a little two-bar phrase that [Gb] happens at the end of a lot of blues tunes, [B] and typically it goes
from the A minor [A] to _ the [B] 5 at the end.
A lot [Ab] of players will, in jam sessions, a lot of times they'll [A] start from that.
They'll say take it from the [C] 5 chord, or take [Bb] it from the turnaround.
That means you're gonna go like this,
[B] and start from the 12-bar [A] thing.
So the other thing you need to know about [Gb] the Jimmy Reed thing is this real simple
[Abm] boogie-woogie thing on the bass [E] strings.
Instead of playing E down here, you're gonna [A] do this.
Just play the fifth string at the second fret and [E] strum so to hit the
fifth and sixth strings.
Do this little boogie thing. _
Then for the A, you just move it [A] up a fret. _ _ _ _ _
When it goes to the B, you [B] can just go to a B seventh, or [A] you can do this.
This is what Jimmy Reed did.
He went up to the fourth string, fourth fret, and played it with the open fifth string and did that same _ _ _
_ _ _ _ So we're gonna stick to that 12-bar pattern, only this [Gb] time we're in the key of [Ab] E.
And I'll start it from the turnaround, [A] and we'll do a tune called Baby, What You Want Me To Do,
which is what they always call [G] this
Jimmy Reed song, although he never says [D] Baby, What You Want Me To Do in it.
Maybe somebody misunderstood his lyric.
[Abm] So here we go.
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ Baby, why do you want to let it [E] go?
_ _ _ _ [B] _
You got [E] me keeping,
you got me hiding.
You got me deep, high, high, deep,
anywhere [Em] you want to [A] let it roll. _ _ _ _ _ _
[Em] _ You _ _ _ [E] _
[A] got me doing what you want me, baby, why do you want to let [E] it go?
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
[E] _ _ [A] Just a couple times around that.
So [Bb] I made use of some of those E blues [A] licks that I talked about,
but the main thing is that that boogie [Abm] woogie thing is going to turn out to be a real important component in a lot of blues tunes. _ _ _ _ _ _
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