BY JEFF MCERLAIN
Jeff McErlain is a New York City-based guitar
player, producer, songwriter, and educator. He
performs regularly in NYC and abroad with
his trio and blues band. Jeff has a number of
instructional DVDs available at TrueFire.com,
and he is a featured instructor for the National
Guitar Workshop. Jeff’s latest album, I’m Tired,
is available on i Tunes or at jeffmcerlain.com.
CHOPS: Advanced Beginner/
Intermediate
THEORY: Intermediate
LESSON OVERVIEW:
• Learn the essential elements
of British blues
• Combine major and minor
pentatonic scales
• Build tension with rapid-fire
repeating licks
Click here to hear
sound clips of
these examples.
British Blues
It must have been awesome to be knock- ing around all the blues clubs in London
during the mid to late ’60s. Think about
it: On a given night, you could run across
Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter
Green, Mick Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, or David
Gilmour. The stars aligned as they did in
NYC in the ’50s with Miles Davis, Charlie
Parker, and John Coltrane, or in Chicago
around Chess Records and Detroit with
Motown. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alive for any
of that stuff. Maybe the tail end of the British
thing, but my diapers would most likely have
been a downer onstage. (I did witness the
Seattle scene in the ’90s, but at that point,
guitar solos had gone out of fashion.)
I’m a huge blues fan, but the way the Brits
played it really got to me. It was just the right
blend of blues and rock ’n’ roll—two great
American art forms blended into its own
sound. So what is British blues? I’ll make a
few generalizations here, so bear with me.
I’d say the Brit school is mostly influenced by Chicago blues—and the likes
of B.B. King and Muddy Waters—so the
sound is a bit more of a mix of major
and minor blues scales, as opposed to the
straight minor blues sound that’s associated
with Texas blues. Basically, Brit blues is a bit
happier. For an in-depth look at this sound,
check out my column in the June 2011
LESSON > BEYOND BLUES
issue [“The Composite Blues Scale,” June
2011]. Mix that with all the great Memphis
rock ’n’ roll sounds of Elvis Presley, Carl
Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis, add some loud
guitar, and it all comes together.
The invention of the Marshall amplifier
had a huge impact on the British sound.
Cranking the volume on a Marshall generated overdrive and sustain that defines what
we think of as British Blues. Eric Clapton
basically invented that guitar tone in 1966
on John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric
Clapton album. Don’t own it? Buy it now!
What is cooler than a cranked Marshall and
a Les Paul? This month, I want to share a
few of my favorite licks from Clapton, Jeff
Beck, Jimmy Page, and Peter Green. These
aren’t difficult licks, but they do embody
that British attitude.
Every time I play the intro lick in Fig. 1,
it makes my big toe stand up in my boot.
This is straight up Cream-era Clapton. I
love his heavy vibrato on the tritone of the
C7 chord (B% and E), while the amp’s gain
does the work for him with the ringing
overtones. Another Clapton-ism that I have
heard Robben Ford use from time to time
is shown in Fig. 2. It’s based on a C minor
pentatonic scale (C–E%–F–G–B%) with the 6
(A) replacing the 7. I like it because it adds
a little bit of flavor to a blues. This lick
Fig. 1
&
3
fi oej oej oe oe oe
C7
oeoe b oeoe nb oeoe ˙˙
˙˙
3
‰fioejoejoe oeoe oeoe b oeoe nb oeoe ˙˙
˙ 8 10
8
10
8
7
8
8
9
Fig. 2
44 &
oeoe oe b
17 15
16
oeoeoe oeoeoe oeoeoe
17 15
16
17 15
16
17 15
16
8 10
8
10
8
7
8
8
9
oeoe oe b oeoeoe oeoeoe fi oe bj oeoeoe ˙
Ó
1
17 15
16
17 15
16
17 15
16
17 15
16
