Blues Blast Magazine DVD Review: The Guitar of Robert Johnson and The Guitar of Skip James

Good day!

This DVD review was originally published in the January 7, 2016 edition of Blues Blast Magazine. Be sure to check out the rest of the magazine at www.bluesblastmagazine.com

The Guitar of Robert Johnson and The Guitar of Skip James

Stan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop

www.guitarvideos.com

If you have always wanted to learn to play the blues guitar but do not know where to start, pick up a decent acoustic 6-string and head on over to Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop website and start looking around. For the price of one lesson you can pick up a 3+ hour DVD set that will get you headed in the right direction.

Stefan Grossman is not just a publisher, he is first and foremost a real-deal guitar player with serious credentials. He hails from Brooklyn, and was taught by the esteemed Reverend Gary Davis as well as other legends that include Son House, Skip James, and Mississippi John Hurt. Though he was touring extensively, in the late 1960s he saw the opportunity to reach guitarists with albums that included tablature so they could be played along with, which is how we got his fabulous 1967 LP, How to Play Blues Guitar. As time went on, he added many titles and eventually got into CDs, videocassettes, and DVDs.

Today there are dozens of titles available from Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, with different artists providing instruction. One of these folks is Tom Feldman, a blues preservationist and talented guitarist who has the uncanny ability to play amazing reproductions of works as originally done by the masters of the blues guitar. He has produced videos on bottleneck slide, Delta blues, and Mississippi hill country blues, as well as a series of videos that can show guitarists how to play like their favorite guitarist, including Son House, Frank Stokes, Charlie Patton, Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White, and many others. I recently had the opportunity to go through two of these DVD lessons: The Guitar of Robert Johnson and The Guitar of Skip James, and came away very impressed.

The Guitar of Robert Johnson is quite an undertaking, with three discs and almost six hours of material included. Johnson’s discography includes only 29 songs that were recorded in 1936 and 1937, and Feldman’s lessons include nearly all of them. Unlike some other releases from Stefan Grossman the original artist recordings are not included in the lessons (due to licensing issues), so you will need to buy your own. Of course, if you are a Robert Johnson fan that wants to learn how to play like him, you certainly already own his complete catalogue. Tom groups the songs by type (standard and open tunings, then by position) then plays each of the tunes as he sings along. Feldman has a pleasant demeanor, and he is an excellent teacher who goes through the nuances of each the songs in the proper amount of detail, slowing down and explaining the structure as necessary. As an added bonus, there is a .pdf booklet on each of the disks that includes tablature and lyrics for each song. This document does not come up on the DVD menu, but you can find it with Internet Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac).

The Guitar of Skip James has the same features as the Robert Johnson lessons, including the .pdf documentation and Tom Feldman’s excellent instruction. But it takes a slightly different tack, as its two disks (234 minutes) include bonus material of original audio performances by James, as well as some of his performance at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. The fifteen songs that are covered are divided into standard, crossnote, and Spanish tuning.

Both of these DVD-based lessons are well produced, with clear cinematography that is lit properly and numerous camera angles (including a very helpful split-screen mode). The sound is clear and the guitar cuts through nicely, even on laptop speakers, though it would be optimal to put the sound through a decent set of speakers. From an instructional perspective, this is a sound learning method that allows the student to work at his or her own pace and to be immediately rewarded by hearing the results, which is a wonderful motivational factor. But it should be kept in mind that these are not beginner lessons, and they are recommended for intermediate or advanced players.

So, these video lessons from Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop are not going to make a novice player sound like either one of these esteemed artists, but an intermediate or advanced player will definitely get their money’s worth in a hurry. If you go to a guitar teacher and tell them you want to learn Robert Johnson or Skip James songs, what they will be able to do for you will not even begin to approach what Mr. Feldman has put together here. These DVDs are worth every penny ($49.95 for Robert Johnson or $39.95 for Skip James), and even if you are not aspiring to be just like one of these artists be sure to see what else the website has to offer. Surely something will strike your fancy as there is a little something for anyone who wants to get started playing, or who is interested in taking his or her guitar skills to the next level.

Blues Blast Magazine Album Review: Doug Otto and Hurricane Harold – Blues at Barkin’ Jack’s

Good day!

This CD review was originally published in the February 19, 2015 edition of Blues Blast Magazine. Be sure to check out the rest of the magazine at www.bluesblastmagazine.com

Doug Otto and Hurricane Harold - Blues at Barkin’ Jack’s

Self Release

10 tracks / 36:53

A lot of new blues music has to be described in terms of the other genres that have influenced its sound, for example, blues-rock, country-blues, and the old standard: rhythm and blues. There is no struggle to figure this out with Doug Otto and Hurricane Harold’s new CD, Blues at Barkin’ Jacks. This release is mostly blues at its most basic level – guitar, voice, and harmonica, and all of it is played with a remarkable brilliance. No drums, bass or keyboard were needed to achieve their goals, and the effect is really cool.

Both of these gentlemen hail from the Twin Cities, and those long cold winters in the great white north have apparently given them the opportunity to hone their chops! Doug Otto provides the guitar and vocals for this project, but he also finds plenty of work with his own bands, the Getaways and North Country Bandits, as well as sitting in with the No Accounts. Hurricane Harold Tremblay is a master harmonica man (a mentor of Curtis Blake), and co-founder of Cool Disposition. He also hosts a weekly blues show on KFAI radio in Minneapolis and leads the All-Star Revue, which features some truly fine artists from Minnesota – he is a genuine renaissance man.

Blues at Barkin’ Jacks has ten tracks that are mostly covers of wonderful vintage blues tunes, along with three originals that were written by Otto. It was recorded live in the studio with no overdubs and no more than two takes for any song. Jeremy Johnson did a wonderful job of engineering and mixing the guys’ time in the studio, and the final product has a clean sound that makes it sound like these guys are playing in your living room.

After starting off the set with a slow-driving rendition of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Asked for Water,” the duo plays the first of the three originals, “Broken Thoughts.” Otto’s writing on these songs has more of a roots and country-blues theme, and all of them are well suited to his pleasant tenor vocal range (which makes him sound a bit like Eric Clapton). His songwriting is mature, with good imagery and phrasing, which can also be found on “Heart to Heart” and “My Time is Moving Slow.” The latter gives Tremblay a chance to sing harmonies, which is a cool effect as his voice lends a unique droning effect. This is the standout track in the album, without a doubt.

The rest of the songs are straight-up Maxwell Street blues material, as can be heard from Muddy Waters’ “Long Distance Call,” which uses subtle electric guitar chording with a heavy bass beat while Harold shows off his fine feel for the harp. Otto’s guitar tone is outstanding on Skip James’ haunting classic “Hard Time Killing Floor,” and he also delivers a surprisingly good falsetto vocal performance, which is a hard thing to accomplish for most singers.

The classics continue with Lonnie Johnson’s “She’s Making Whoopie (in Hell Tonight)” which would be a hard song to write today, but in 1930 there were no political correctness police to contend with. There are also a couple of well-done Robert Johnson tunes, “Hell Hound on My Trail” and “Kind Hearted Woman,” that are delivered in a wonderfully laconic style.

Despite the good craftsmanship these gentlemen showed on the cover tunes, the originals are exceptionally special, and are the highlight of this disc. A full-length album of Otto-penned originals would surely be a good listen, and hopefully this pair will have the chance to continue their work and head back to the studio to give us a bit more of this wonderful stuff.

There is a lot to like about Blues at Barkin’ Jack’s, and Doug Otto and Hurricane Harold really delivered the goods. Their bare bones live sound is clear, and the selection of tunes that they assembled works well together. There is no mistaking this album for anything but the blues, and you should certainly give it a listen!

Mahalo!