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Robert Johnson’s music embodied the Delta blues in its finished state. And
there was no end to Johnson’s innovation. He played with a slide and without,
in altered tunings as well as standard, and he shifted from accompaniment
to a featured guitar style effortlessly. Actually, only one solo break of
Johnson’s talent is even on recording. To hear Robert Johnson play his only
known recorded solo break, check out “Kind Hearted Woman Blues.”
Practicing Johnson’s famous style
Johnson played his brand of blues in many keys and in many different tunings,
but he’s known for his work in the key of open A. Figure 11-3 shows a
passage in standard tuning that Johnson frequently used for intros, turnarounds,
and endings.
Track 66
Shuffle (qr=qce)
A7
E7
Figure 11-3:
A lick in the
key of A in
the style of
Robert
Johnson.
T
A
B
198 Part IV: Sounding Like the Masters: Blues Styles through the Ages TEAM LinG
5 5 5 5 5 5 5
2
2 2
5 4 3
5 0 0
3 3
2 1 1
2
0 0 0
The lick in Figure 11-3 is similar to others that are covered in Chapter 6 in the
key of E. (Don’t worry if you haven’t looked at that chapter yet.) In this figure
I use a device called oblique motion — a fancy term for when one voice stays
the same (the top) and another moves (the lower, descending).
Grasping the elusive Johnson progression
Johnson’s style was complex and hard to pin down. Some of his stylistic hallmarks
include the following:
An insistent bass in quarters and shuffle-eighths
Up-the-neck chords
Chromatic movement
Melodic fills in between vocal phrases
Classic turnaround figures
Figure 11-4 shows a typical Johnson progression.