I Was Completely Wrong About These Guys...

I remember music teachers emphasizing playing with a metronome. None of them mentioned the elasticity of tempo. Learning to groove is an art form all to itself.

Your story is great. First time I saw BB was in 72. About a couple numbers into the first set some idiot in the crowd hollered for him to play like a speedy guitarist ( can’t remember who). He looked at the guy and stood there with his hand on his hip and said ,” like this?” He hit the strings once and put his hand in the air and proceeded to shred the neck for about thirty second. He looked back at the guy ,” anybody can do that shit, let’s see them play the blues.” I love that man.

I toured with BB in the nineties, opening up for him over 70 times around the world. He was the most humble musical genius I ever knew, always looking to make someone else feel important. About his guitar playing he said that he couldn't play and sing at the same time and that his sound came from listening to his cousin Bukka White and trying to imitate Lonnie Johnson. He was always trying to learn something new. We love you BB! ✊🏿

Hendrix never really seems to get credit for being a brilliant songwriter, first and foremost.

I have a friend who met BB in a coffee shop. She didn’t know who he was but proceeded to get into a nice little conversation with him. She said he seemed like a very nice gentleman. It wasn’t until she was about to leave that someone asked her if she knew who she had just been talking to. She was rather shocked when they told her. She thought he was just another regular customer. Lol. Wish that had been me.

"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel."--Jimi Hendrix

Prince tried to tell everyone about this years ago in a song called “Joy In Repition”. An included lyric in that song is “a little bit behind the beat..I mean just enough to turn you on”. His solo in that song also shows that.

Buddy Guy is the extreme example of this theory. He’s all over the place but it sounds so unpredictable and exciting. I think this is an excellent explanation of musical “feel.”

Hendrix was quantum, a voodoo child. He had that human feel, not a machine. Perfection came with the loosening and leaving perfection. That's where the blues reside.

I met B.B. four times, including a chat in the dressing room - quite possibly the single nicest person I've ever met. He could shred when he wanted to, with blues AND jazz riffs. The fact is, when a box pattern on the guitar is NAMED after you {the B.B. box}, that's all anybody needs to know.

One of the best examples of playing blues somewhere loosely in the same area code as ‘the beat’ is the guitar of John Lee Hooker. Not only was his timing incredibly loose and unpredictable, but there are many, many examples of him completely ignoring the I-IV-V pattern that his band is playing. It’s so loose and unpredictable it’s just beautifully from the seat of his pants. The change comes when he feels it. It’s beautiful. And of course BB and John Lee were also great friends.

Goddammit. I'm even not a guitarist and I almost cried of excitement when you described your journey to "finally understanding". Better story than 90% of the current films produced. Better entertainment value than most bizillion-dollar channels out there. You have a fantastic skill of telling stories that are shared as "this is my life, I'm sharing it with you. Learn something." Thanks! BTW at the time of writing I have no idea who you are, I have never heard of you and I don't know how I got to your channel. True story. Subscribing just because: early Metallica and Iron Maiden mentioned! Triggered:)

The heart isn’t a metronome. Your heartbeat fluctuates, unlike a metronome. They play from the heart.

I sat on a couch backstage (just me and B.B.) when I was a U.T. Austin audio engineering student and intern for Austin City Limits back in 1982. He was the kindest gentleman and showed a genuine interest in who I was and what I was hoping to do in my life. We just sat and talked for about 10 minutes while the band was doing a soundcheck. He was so nice, no ego stuff - just a kind, genuine human being.

Jimi was really a blues man. I was able to see him play live four times; all three visits to Chicago in 1968 and Madison WI in ‘69. Really into his music and playing. There was nothing like him…before or since. Did see BB once at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago

Something people tend to forget about older songs is that they were typically performed live in the studio. Like most live performances, they didn't use a metronome. The band is in sync with each other, but the tempo ebbs and flows.

Don't think, feel. Music is about emotion - feelings. Jimi and BB connect to non musicians because of the great sense of phrasing and feeling. Their music talks to your soul. Satch took that lesson and added the pyrotechnics in some but not all of his tunes.

Playing slightly around the beat, before, on and after, allows for more expression. Singers do it too. Playing in front conveys urgency and playing behind sounds more laidback. I didn't fully realise BB King was doing this. It can be quite subtle. Great video!

That's how I feel about David Gilmour and his guitar playing. In my opinion, he's not a "technically" great guitar player and probably couldn't keep up with many of the so-called "flashier" guitar players, but he knows how to bend those strings in such a way that his soul comes out of that guitar and not just notes and chords. When he makes his "guitar cry," he makes me cry.

I was a young boy starting out when The Thrill Is Gone hit the radio. That first note! And the run of notes after it. The ones you were trying. That changed me forever. I was dumbfounded! How could such a simple sequence of notes be so expressive and beautiful - SUCH melancholy that I went into an altered state of musical reverie that was magical. I thought "hey, I can play those notes. They sound simple. The blues is just an easy trick, really" But when I got home and played them they sounded lifeless. And thus I realized how subtle variances in tone and timing and volume etc,how nuance, is EVERYTHING. I tried over and over but I never could sound like King. I discovered Hendrix shortly thereafter and encountered another player who had the special alchemy, the magic, to mine human feelings and convert them effortlessly into sounds, singing, as it were, with his guitar, but in a very different, more complex form than King. Now I at least know what music is. And I understand why those two guys consistently show up at the top of every list despite the fact that there are Youtube sensations all over the world who are cleaner and faster and better schooled in the craft. In the realm of rock and blues a much subtler set of skills apply which cannot be mechanized. These guys will be remembered two hundred years from now.