KING B.B.,THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION. CD TABLATURE
B.B. King - The Definitive Collection
Series: Signature Licks Guitar
Format: Softcover with CD - TAB
Artist: B.B. King
Author: Wolf Marshall
Learn the trademark styles and techniques of the most celebrated guitarist in blues! This book/CD pack by Wolf Marshall is a breakdown of B.B. King's guitar style, sound and techniques, with a brief history and lessons for each piece. Covers 16 signature blues tunes, including: Beautician blues -cryin' won't help you -don't answer the door -five long years -just like a woman -paying the cost to be the boss -please love me -riding with the king -rock me baby -sweet little angel -sweet sixteen -three o'clock blues -the thrill is gone -why I sing the blues -you done lost your good thing now -you upset me baby.
Inventory #HL 00695635
ISBN: 9780634030574
UPC: 073999209907
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
64 pages
INTRODUCTION
The credentials that establish B.B. King as the King of the Blues are voluminous and indisputable. He is the music's elder statesman, its most visible global ambassador, and an all-important hero and role model to generations of musicians everywhere. Riley B. "B.B." King came on the scene at a time when electric guitar playing was in its infancy. He picked up the gauntlet thrown down by T-Bone Walker in the late 1940s and went on to redefine blues guitar for all time. He built a highly distinctive single-note style which codified the techniques of string bending and finger vibrato. Furthermore, he was among the first to effectively harness the power and tone of a distorted amplifier for its sustain and vocal quality. These factors epitomize the electric guitar in the modern era and remain part and parcel of virtually every contemporary guitar style. Today B.B.'s music is essential listening in all sectors of modern guitar. Countless aspiring players from Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Mike Bloomfield to Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Mark Knopfler, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have transplanted King's licks into their repertory or been influenced by his slinky phrasing, as will tomorrow' s guitar stars. In my teenage years I followed my heroes' leads and spent hundreds of hours listening to and assimilating B.B.'s sounds with rewarding results. It is an illuminating and invaluable experience for all guitarists. To this end the following volume is offered. This definitive B.B. King collection is the first guitar signature licks book/CD to fully explore his music and playing style. It is offered as an introduction, a detailed hands-on study, and a tribute to the great blues master. Enjoy.
DISCOGRAPHY
The titles in this volume came from the following recordings:
KING OF THE BLUES. (Box set: MCA) 'Three 0' Clock Blues," "Rock Me Baby," "Don't Answer the Door," "Paying the Cost To Be the Boss," "Why I Sing the Blues," "The Thrill Is Gone"
SINGIN' THE BLUESfTHE BLUES (FlairNirgin Records) "Please Love Me," "Sweet Little Angel," "Cryin' Won't Help You"
THE BEST OF B.B. KING, Volume 1. (FlairNirgin Records) "Beautician Blues," "Five Long Years"
MY KINO OF BLUES. (EM I-Capitol Special Markets) "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now"
WHY I SING THE BLUES. (MCA) "Sweet Sixteen"
RIDING WITH THE KING, B.B. King and Eric Clapton. (Reprise) "Riding With the King"
B.B. KING
(All instruments from the collection of the author) A Gibson devotee from the beginning, B.B. King first played hollow-body archtop electric guitars. Various photos from the 1950s have pictured him with an ES-5 with P-90s, a Byrdland with Alnico Vs, and an ES-175D with humbuckers. B.B. acquired his first semi-hollow, an ES-335, in 1958 and was seen with a dot-neck 335 at his momentous 1962 ABC-Bluesway recording debut. By the mid 1960s King was playing the luxurious ES-355. This model became his favorite guitar for two decades. The Gibson B.B. King "Lucille" was introduced in 1980 as the B.B. King Custom. Based on the 355, "Lucille" officially joined the fold in 1988 as the flagship of Gibson's semi-hollow line. It features an ebony fingerboard with block inlay markers, fancy multiple binding around the body and headstock, gold-plated hardware, stereo circuitry with two output jacks, and a six-position Varitone switch. B.B.'s personal refinements on the signature instrument include a fine-tuner TP-6 tailpiece, a semi-hollow body without soundholes in an ebony finish, and the name "Lucille" inlayed on the head. "Lucille" delivers the definitive B.B. King tone, allowing the player to fully mix neck and bridge pickups in the center position, an option not available on most Gibson twin-pickup guitars. Listen for yourself. My "Lucille" is heard on most tracks of the accompanying audio. Pictured in the backline is one of the favorite Fender tube amps used by B.B. during the 1960s: a 2x12 Twin-Reverb. B.B. switched to Gibson Lab Series L5 2x12 solid-state amps sometime in the 1970s. He continues to use these and reissue Fender '65 Twin-Reverbs to the present. B.B. strings Lucille with a Gibson B.B. King heavy bottom- light top 10-54 string set and prefers a medium-stiff Gibson pick.
THE RECORDING
Guitar: Wolf Marshall
Drums: Mike Sandberg
Bass: Michael Della Gala
Keyboards: Ted Vaughn. John Nau plays keyboards on "Just Like A Woman"
Sax and Brass: The Roland Coltrane Orchestra
Produced by Wolf Marshall at Marshall Arts Music
Special thanks to Alex Perez, Del Breckenfeld, and Bill Cummiskey, Fender Musical Instruments.
Extra special thanks to Matt Ferguson, Paul Moses, and David Rohrer, Gibson USA.
THREE O' CLOCK BLUES
Words and Music by 8.8. King and Jules 8ihari
Figure 1-lntro and Verse 1
"Three 0' Clock Blues" was Riley B. King's breakthrough hit and is a cornerstone of his legacy. This auspicious track has humble origins. A reworked Lowell Fulson tune, it was recorded in 1951 using portable tape equipment and the local Memphis YMCA as a makeshift studio. The resulting performance was released as an RPM single, reaching #1 on the R&B charts in 1952. "Three 0' Clock Blues" captures B.B. as an emerging blues artist in transition. It was during this period that he first named his guitar "Lucille" and was still very much under the spell of T-Bone Walker guitaristically. The phrasing, tone, and several key mannerisms clearly reflect Walker's approach. Nonetheless, this is a landmark B.B. moment marking an important evolutionary point in blues guitar history and presaging future classics like "Sweet Little Angel" and "Five Long Years." "Three 0' Clock Blues" is a smoldering slow blues in Bb.It begins with a four-measure intro entering on the V chord, a device commonly found in blues arrangements. In the verse Lucille adopts the dialoguing role, playing off vocal phrases with terse answering guitar fills typical of B.B.'s question-and-answer style. Throughout the intro and verse fills, most of B.B.'s lines are based on a mixture of the B~ Mixolydian mode (B~-C-D- E~-F-G~-Ab) and Bbminor pentatonic scale (B~-Db-E~-F-A~) resulting in a familiar juxtaposition of dominant seventh and minor sounds. The microtona! quarter-step bend, an important chromaticism of blues, is used freely in B.B.'s guitar lines, generally to color the third and seventh degrees of the scale. The prominent E note in measure 2 indicates use of the Bb Blues scale. Measures 3 and 4 contain swing lines reminiscent of Charlie Christian. In many characteristic phrases, as in measures 3, 12, and 16, the Db note acts as a C# leading tone into the 0 note, the major third of a Bb arpeggio figure. Here it is heard in two specific forms: an ascending arpeggio in measure 12 and a descending arpeggio in measure 16. The latter is a frequently-used cadence lick. Both forms remain B.B. King trademarks to the present. The slur in measure 7 is attributable to T-Bone and provides an early clue as to the genesis of a classic B.B. King lick. In the coming years B.B. often incorporated the practice of sliding into a unison tonic note on adjacent strings as a phrasing mannerism and a position-shifting tactic. It will henceforth be named The BB. Shift Lick in this volume to avoid redundancy. The tone is typical of B.B.'s sound in the early 1950s and emanates from an archtop electric guitar (probably his Gibson ES-5) with heavier strings mated to a slightly overdriven tube amp.
Beautician Blues - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1964
Cryin' Won't Help You - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1955
Don't Answer The Door - Words and Music: B.B. King - 1995
Five Long Years - Words and Music: B.B. King - 1966
Just Like A Woman - Words and Music: B.B. King - 1966
Paying The Cost To Be The Boss - Words and Music: B.B. King - 1968
Please Love Me - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1952
Riding With The King - Words and Music: John Hiatt - 1983
Rock Me Baby - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1964
Sweet Little Angel - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1956
Sweet Sixteen - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1967
Three O'Clock Blues - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1952
The Thrill Is Gone - Words and Music: Roy Hawkins, Rick Darnell - 1951
Why I Sing The Blues - Words and Music: B.B. King - 1969
You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1960
You Upset Me Baby - Words and Music: B.B. King, Jules Bihari - 1954
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