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Chapter 13
Blues Rock: The Infusion
of Ol’ Rock ’n’ Roll
In This Chapter
Checking out the influences of blues on rock
Discovering the different genres of blues rock
The year 1965 was one of the most important years in popular music history.
It was the year of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” and the Rolling
Stones’ “Satisfaction.” For guitarists, it was also the beginning of a vast blues
revival. Suddenly, mid-’60s electric guitarists on both sides of the Atlantic
began re-exploring the blues and the roots of rock ’n’ roll, along the way
inventing an exciting, influential genre called “blues rock.”
What traditional electric blues gave to the emerging style of blues rock was
widespread use of string bends and finger vibrato in composed melodic lines
and improvised solos. Before the influence of blues, rockers in the ’50s could
buy only heavy-gauge guitar strings, but ’60s blues rockers learned how to
bend new, lighter-gauge strings, develop a strong vibrato, and hold long, sustained
notes for many beats. These blues techniques gave rock guitar leads a
more human, vocal-like quality.
This new level of expression also gave birth to the “guitar hero.” By the end of
the 1960s, guitar gods like Eric Clapton, Michael Bloomfield, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff
Beck, and Jimmy Page had become the gold standard of blues-rock currency.
But these guitarists went beyond just bending strings — they also employed
high-powered amplifiers, such as the fabled Marshall stack, to play blues guitar
at previously unheard of volumes, and infused their tone with tube overdrive,
fuzzbox distortion, and the deep funk of wah-wah pedals. (For more on these
effects, see Chapter 15.)
In this chapter, I show you how to transform your playing to this new realm,
highlighting the great blues-rock guitarists of this era and bringing bend as
well as the effects of overdrive and wah to the forefront, so you can impress
all your friends with your screamin’ tricks.
TEAM LinG