Topic: Blind Lemon Jefferson's Guitar Style--Queries and Tips

[creightonblues1920]

Hi it's me Creighton does anybody know or have any blind lemon tableture . What chords did he play and such . Can somebody please let me know

[Pan]

John Miller teaches a variety of Lemon tunes. Check out his site. If you scroll down to the transcriptions list for country blues you'll find a list of the tunes:

http://www.johnmillerguitar.com/teaching.html

Ari Eisinger also has done an instructional video of Lemon tunes with TAB, here's a link:

http://www.secondmind.com/

Hope this helps

Cheers

Pan

[onewent]

I've used Ari's TAB (as part of face-to-face lessons at his apt) and find it very accurate and helpful.  I've not experienced John's teachings, but would predict it's top notch.  Tom

[creightonblues1920]

Hi I am creighton I am 14 years old you may know me as creighton Wodarski on facebook . I have autism and the mind of a forty year old I obsess on the blues from the 20s and thought that maybe this would be the place for help . I also play charlie patton son house and Willie brown and Robert Johnson . I am struggling on blind lemon . He is very hard . I know about the videos that are lessons on YouTube but I know there's many of you guys that can help me with this . I want to know his riffs, licks , and songs and tabs . I also am wanting to speak to Frankie basline the man on YouTube known as frankie12string . If he could see this page and comment back I would appreciate it he seems to know almost every lemon song . If he could help me out as well as you guys it would mean the whole word. To me , if any of you guys have any tabs , riffs licks and songs or instructions please send them my way ! I don't bite! . I am hoping to learn a good amount of his songs and styles and maybe hopefully make songs using his style of style . Thanks you guys for reading i thank  you guys a lot . Hope to hear from you soon . creighton

[banjochris]

I would really recommend Ari Eisinger's Blind Lemon DVD lesson video, it's very helpful. There's a huge thread on BLJ lyrics here and most of them are on Weeniepedia, I believe.
Good luck!
Chris

[Rivers]

Here's a link to the weeniepedia lyrics index for Lemon. Many (most?) of the Lemon lyric pages will tell you which position, and actual 'sounding' key, the song was played out of.

http://weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Blind_Lemon_Jefferson_Lyrics

I agree with Chris, Ari's DVD is very helpful. The songs he selects demonstrate Lemon's approach and various key ideas, played in some of the positions Lemon favoured.

[frankie]

Hi Creighton - Ari's video is definitely the best place to start with Lemon...  I started with him more than 20 years ago ( no video THEN! ) and not much has changed, really - he's still got the best grasp on Lemon of anyone...  I learned how to hear what I can of country blues just by observing him pick apart One Dime Blues phrase by phrase.

I do love Blind Lemon's music, and play what I can although things like Matchbox Blues I'll probably never touch! I know everyone has their favorites and what they consider to be the most important CB players...  I have lots and lots of favorite sounds, but the two that I will always and forever return to are Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Lemon Jefferson.  They each represent such a compelling and unique combination of ability and imagination.

Good luck!

[frankie]

One more thing - John Miller teaches That Crawlin' Baby Blues on this DVD:

Texas Blues Guitar

I've known John a long time, too, and there's NOTHING he can't teach or play - even a tune as nutty as this!

[ArthurBlake]

One more thing - John Miller teaches That Crawlin' Baby Blues on this DVD:

Texas Blues Guitar

I've known John a long time, too, and there's NOTHING he can't teach or play - even a tune as nutty as this!

I'll second that Frankie, Mr John Miller is amazing. As For Crawlin Baby Blues, he does teach it perfectly but I think your video of the song is maybe your best, we have talked before about how to actually sing the tune over that fantastically tricky and cool guitar and I still can't sing it and dare not ever try it at a gig. I know young Creighton as he is a friend on Facebook and his passion is %100 and I am sure that he will rise and rise and be great. I reckon you should do a video on Blind Lemon tunes as well and to do different tunes than Ari has on his video. As for Ari I think he is the best player alive today.

[Chuckboom]

Ari,s lessons on BLJ are outstanding. They've  taken me more than a year to digest but have opened up the fretboard for me. Thank you Ari and of course Lemon as well.I wish I had found this material decades ago.Good luck Mr.Chreigton keep pickin your on the right path.

[Rivers]

As an aside, I think Ari's teaching style in person is interesting. In front of a class he will honestly point out something that he hasn't quite got, and ask for suggestions. Maybe it's 'this' (plays something), but maybe it's 'that' (plays something else). Cut to creative class-noodling all round followed by more dialog.

This engages the class, some of whom might well come up with something else entirely that is also in the ballpark.

Pedagogical method 101. Create a question in the minds of the class, nature hates a vacuum. Johnm is also a master of this. I suspect it's entirely instinctive for both of them, like all good teachers.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I had occasion recently to do a lesson on "Low Down Mojo Blues" recently--it's played out of E position in standard tuning and is working a lot of the same territory as "Pneumonia Blues" and "Yo Yo Blues"--and I came away with the strong impression that on that song, and I'm convinced, many others, Lemon used his fingers in his right hand for picking very sparingly, using his thumb (with a thumbpick) to play almost the entire piece, much as you can see JB Lenoir and Buddy Moss do on some of the performance footage of their playing.  Lemon, of course, had tremendous facility with his right thumb and a huge technical arsenal of varied attacks, down-up picking, tremolo, controlled little brushes, et al.  Another huge category of his repertoire that I'm convinced he played almost entirely with his thumb would be his C pieces like "Blacksnake Moan", a sort of accompaniment template that he re-visited very often in his later recording career.

I'm curious as to whether folks who have worked through a fair amount of Lemon's material have come to similar or different conclusions.

All best,
Johnm   

[frankie]

I've definitely come to the same conclusion. On the pieces you've mentioned, there's very little of anything like a constant bass underneath some treble licks. It seems to me that if someone were determined and nuanced enough, that you could get a lot of the same texture with a flatpick.

[CF]

Very interesting! I'm going to do some listening to hear what you guys are hearing.
All my first attempts at Lemon were with a flatpick. I now finger pick most of the time but the stuff I learned from Lemon with a flatpick greatly informed even my, say, folky, old-time guitar playing.
I use a flatpick periodically these days to get a certain sound & style out of my banjo-guitar.

[uncle bud]

Agreed. I'd say it's also hard to nail down any particular pattern other than a lot of thumb (i.e. he adds an index finger when doing this kind of lick). He just seems to be very fluid with it all, sometimes throwing in an index, sometimes all thumb. He must have had a very loose and free right hand.

I probably tend to overuse my index finger playing Lemon, especially for quick bass runs.