Homespun

Chris Smither has made a terrific lesson for everyone interested in taking traditional blues guitar style and incorporating it into a contemporary setting. He has perfected the art of combining the fingerpicking he first learned from the music of Lightnin' Hopkins, Skip James, Brownie McGhee and other country blues masters with groove-driven original songs that are as current as today's news.

Chris takes apart some of his most requested songs, slowing them down and analysing his arrangements for the learning guitarist. Chock full of musical advice, clarity and good humor, this lesson will add powerful licks and interesting ideas to your song accompaniments and blues technique.

You'll learn the bass-line shuffle groove of Link of Chain, the sliding harmony figures of Happier Blue and a load of great riffs to pull them together (including Chris's trademark use of his feet for rhythm accompanyment). Moving into open D tuning, he gets deeply into Hold On, with its bluesy vibrato, bends and hammer-ons, while Roly Salley's heart-wrenching Killin' the Blues (one of Chris's most requested covers) highlights his ballad accompaniment. Back to standard tuning, Chris takes apart the Skip James-type lick that's at the heart of Can't Shake These Blues, and then closes with a Delta-style The Devil's Real.

Review:

"Playing a blue Alvarez-Yairi guitar, miking his foot for percussion, and singing way down in his chest like a man who has lived too long under a dark bridge, Chris Smither is, quite simply, a wonder." -- Stereo Review