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Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 7

4 rounds of 12-bar shuffle blues improv in E.

Kirk Fletcher

Blues

Solo

Shuffle Blues Solo

Kirk Fletcher - Shuffle Blues Solo

Hank Williams III

Hank Williams III - Cocaine Blues Solo Lick

Lick 6

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 6

Lick 5

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 5

Lick 4

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 4

Lick 2

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 2

Lick 3

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 3

Lick 1

Troy Dexter Country Star Licks. Lick 1

Troy Dexter Star Licks, 50 Licks Country Style

Jazz

Only jazz routine

Jimi Hendrix

Eric Haugen

Rock

Hendrix, Little Miss Lover lick

The mother of Cliff Gallup licks, found in almost every Gene Vincent solo.

In 12 bar blues-context:
https://youtu.be/yzkcCghhgUQ?t=86

Cliff Gallup

Rockabilly

Cliff Gallup trademark lick

In solo context

Moving to the often misunderstood bridge pickup, this is probably the simplest of all the examples, but brings in a couple of 6ths as a nod to more traditional turnarounds. The tone is more aggressive, too, but the sound is slightly crunchy rather than dirty, so it still sits happily in this context.

Musicradar

Blues turnarounds. Lick 5

These Red House style descending dominant 7th triads are a really traditional device, going all the way back to Robert Johnson and probably before. As with the other examples, we've changed the pickup selection around to put a different slant on this. A bit of a wobble with the bar makes things more contemporary, too.

Blues turnarounds. Lick 4

Using these chromatic shifting triads, keeping the C on top is another classic move, often used in blues piano. It's worth taking the time to choose the most comfortable fingering for you, but at this tempo it shouldn't present too many problems.

Blues turnarounds. Lick 2

Five random blues licks

Perhaps more usually heard descending in a lower register, this example reverses those conventions, keeping a traditional feel but treading slightly newer ground. It mixes in really well with the C blues scale, which, of course, we've kept in mind all along!

Blues turnarounds. Lick 1

This example takes a more fragmented approach, borrowing the moving 6ths motif from many a classic turnaround, mixing in some blues scale and a 'piano' lick to finish. Robin Trower certainly makes ideas like this sound fresh and dynamic.

Blues turnarounds. Lick 3

 and Stevie Ray Vaughan take influence from

 organ players like Jimmy Smith, resulting in some very cool double-stop and trilling ideas.

Try using hybrid picking for a balanced and dynamic delivery.

Organ licks

Blues lick 4. Organ licks

This lick is an example of how a sterile musical device, such as an arpeggio, can be decorated to great effect. Three guitarists that excel at this and spring instantly to mind are Mark Knopfler, Peter Green and Eric Clapton.

Our example features a decorated D minor (D-F-A) and minor 7 (D-F-A-C) arpeggio. Arpeggios are an instant route to ‘chord tone targeting’ and always sound great!

MK and PG m7 arpeggio fragment

Blues lick 3. Mark Knopfler and Peter Green Minor 7 arpeggio fragment

A common trick that blues-rockers use over a dominant chord is to play both the major and minor pentatonic scales from the same key centre (A, in this case). This is often done by using the same scale fingering for A minor (at the 5th fret), then moving it down three frets, to become A major (at the 2nd).

Players ranging from Angus Young to Paul Gilbert frequently apply this idea.

Angus Young-style Minor to major pentatonic

Blues lick 2. Angus Young-style Minor to major pentatonic

This major pentatonic repeating idea is a Freddie King staple. He used a triplet grouping, whereas Beatle George Harrison applied a cool rhythmic displacement idea in 16th notes on Hard Days Night.

This idea rears its head once more in Paul Kossoff’s amazingly vocal solo in Free’s All Right Now. And in a country setting, you can hear it in Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town, by Kenny Rogers.

Freddie King major motif

Blues lick 1. Freddie King major motif

Justin Sandercoe

Major Penta Lick 1

Major Penta Lick 2

All blues licks

Jazz and lick routine

The second repeating motif is the classic Chuck Berry figure, which is a mainstay in this genre and used by practically everybody from Keith Richards and George Harrison 

The second bar is a more embellished and modern sounding variation as used by both Jimi Hendrix and 

Blues lick 23. Chuck Berry string bend repeating figure

This fingering and the available vocabulary makes it our number favourite lick.

It’s rife in the playing of every blues or rock guitarist, as it spans the music of early blues elder statesmen Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, and has been utilised by Hendrix (Hey Joe, Voodoo Chile), David Gilmour (Wish You Were Here), SRV (Scuttle Buttin), Slash (Civil War) and many more.

Blues lick 25. Open-position E minor pentatonic

Although BB King’s earlier work often used the familiar shapes 1 and 2 of the minor pentatonic, for the last few decades he made this particular scale or ‘box’ shape his own.

You can hear Peter Green utilising it beautifully on the Fleetwood Mac classic, Need Your Love So Bad, and more recently by John Mayer on his modern blues masterpiece, Gravity.

Blues lick 24. BB King minor/major box pattern

In keeping with blues tradition, this three-note Clapton-inspired idea is played in triplets. We finish the idea with a couple of 16th-note flourishes to contrast, a la Howlin’ Wolf.

You may well hear a similarity to one of EC’s most well-loved guitar parts

Blues lick 22. Triplet repeating lick

Repetitious figures feature heavily in blues-rock. Bar 1 features a classic Slash-style move, using a three-note motif but played against a rhythmic pulse of four notes per beat, resulting in a clever rhythmic displacement.

Bar 2 demonstrates a similar rhythmic idea but using a minor arpeggio - you’ll hear it in Hotel California, the climax of Page’s Stairway solo and many a Cream live jam.

Blues lick 21. 3 against 4 repeating figures

Some scary Albert King-style bending now, in the shape of this stepped bend idea, whereby a single note is bent in stages to outline an ascending scale. Don’t flex the fingers, but use the wrist instead to take the weight; and always support the bending finger with others.

You should clearly see how this type of progressive wide bending technique was adopted by David Gilmour.

Blues lick 20. Albert King step bend

Another Jimmy Page trait, with this descending 16th-note minor pentatonic sequence reminiscent of his Stairway To Heaven solo intro.

This has become something of a standardised idea across the blues-rock universe.

Blues lick 19. Descending 16th note patterns

A super-effective way to bring colour to the often predictable minor pentatonic is to add a 2nd interval, in this case an E note.

Jimmy Page demonstrates this on the Led Zep slow blues classic, Since I’ve Been Loving You; Jeff Beck’s opening lick in Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers employs it; Santana can be heard using the idea on Europa, and it’s also a favourite of David Gilmour and Chris Rea.

Blues lick 18. Minor pentatonic add2

A series of doublestop moves now, starting with a favourite of SRV’s older sibling, Jimmie Vaughan. We follow with some Chuck Berry/Keith Richards style phrases.

Chuck and Keef get great mileage from such ideas by utilising clever rhythmic displacement.

Blues lick 17. Doublestops

Some rapid-fire pentatonic ideas in the style of the mighty Gary Moore

. These sequences may have been popularised by Gary, but players such as Alvin Lee and Frank Marino have also put similar patterns to great use!

Blues lick 16. Speedy pentatonics

The rather more exotic Hindu scale (R-3-4-5-b7) can be seen as a minor Pentatonic but with a major 3rd replacing the minor 3rd.

Jeff Beck used this frequently in his '70s period (Led Boots), as have Eric Johnson and Steve Vai! The Beatles also famously used it as a Mellotron fill after the second chorus of Strawberry Fields Forever, before Lennon sings the line, “No-one I think is in my tree...”

Blues lick 15. Hindu pentatonic 

This is probably the most lifted Stevie Ray Vaughan lick ever! The rapid hammer-on and pull-off between the root (A) and b9 (Bb) shouldn’t work theoretically, but Stevie proves that if it sounds good, it is good! Countless SRV disciples certainly think so!

Blues lick 14. SRV flat 9

A great way to built intensity in a solo. Hendrix was fond of these and used them to fantastic effect in Manic Depression. And check out Jimmy Page’s intro to Joe Cocker’s With A Little Help From My Friends.

Add some vibrato and make those position shifts smooth.

Blues lick 13. Unison bend

This idea provides a clever turn of speed and works a little like a reverse sweep pick. The idea is to ‘rake’ back towards the lower strings producing a cascade of notes.

You can hear this technique used by Robben Ford, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and more recently, John Mayer, Matt Schofield and jazz-blues maestro Oz Noy.

Aim for a smooth, but rhythmic delivery with added ‘sting’ on the target notes.

Blues lick 12. Sweep/rakes

Many blues-rock players claim to know little about ‘modal’ scales such as Mixolydian (R-2-3-4-5-6-b7), but you wouldn’t know it from listening to them. Often, a ‘note pool’, akin to a bigger ‘modal-sounding’ scale, is formed by combining two smaller scales.

In this case, it's the minor Blues (R-b3-4-b5-5-b7) and major Pentatonic (R-2-3-5-6), resulting in a ‘uber’ Mixolydian scale (R-2-b3-3-4-b5-5-6-b7).

Blues lick 11. Major/minor mixing

Jimi Hendrix took his highly influential rhythm and lead style from soul giant Curtis Mayfield, composed from pentatonic scales in 4ths, first inversion major chords and decorative hammer-ons (think Little Wing, The Wind Cries Mary, etc).

Guitarists as diverse as Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer have also employed this highly effective approach.

Blues lick 10. Hendrix lead/rhythm style

6ths are brilliant at creating great hooks: think of Steve Cropper’s intro to Soul Man, The Allman Brothers’ version of Stormy Monday, Jimi’s Red House intro or Freddie King’s ‘6ths breakdown’ in Hideaway! They’re great for embellishing rhythm parts, too.

Blues lick 9. 6th intervals 

In a bid to break the curse of ‘box’ playing, we can take smaller fragments of the scale and sequence them in octaves.

Everyone from Wes Montgomery to George Benson, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix have put this idea to great use.

Blues lick 8. Moveable octave fragments

This Jimi Hendrix-inspired bending idea has been used by 

The trick is to deftly ‘switch ‘ strings at the height of the 15th-fret second-string bend, to the third string, which is then let down.

Blues lick 7. Hendrix exchange bend

It’s not just classically influenced players such as Yngwie Malmsteen 

This is a common blues variation, whereby the root of the scale (D) is used as a pedal, against a descending line of notes (A-Ab-G) or (5th-b5-4th).

Blues lick 6. Pedal point licks

Before '70s rockers popularised the use of rapid fire pull-offs, Elvis’s guitarist Scotty Moore, 

 were putting them to great use back in the '50s.

They would have got the idea from Les Paul, but the lick has become a rockabilly staple (think Brian Setzer) and has been also picked up by the great Jeff Beck (a huge Cliff Gallup and Les Paul fan).

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