Lightnin Hopkins 1

Hello, how you doing, Mike Brelly, I hope you're doing well as always. And in this video, the first we're talking about some Texas blues guitar players. We're going back really to where it all began, uh talking a little bit about Lightnin Hopkins. And what's great about Lightnin' Hopkins. He has that boogie, and that's gonna be the case with all of this, you're gonna be hearing me talk about in all these videos about rhythm, be it if you're playing chords, if you're playing lead, you want a strong rhythm going on here. And Lightning had some great rhythm, he was very boogie woogie. And uh he did what I kind of call that kind of two guitars in one thing, where he'd be playing the rhythm and doing lead as well, a lot of times uh doing lead lines which are the same as the vocal, which later on very much influenced Jimi Hendrix as well. So, uh, this is a kind of cool, you know, if you've never kind of played this style before, this is certainly a cool introduction into it. And then we're gonna do another one, in another video which is a little bit trickier. Uh, now I am going all natural L. if you want, no, you can use the lectrum, of course. Um, if you use a pick, you're gonna have to use hybrid picking with it. Um, but I've just been kind of doing, uh, my, my fingers. Uh, Lightning used, uh, I believe a thumb pick. I'm not sure if he used picks on his nail, no, kind of finger picks or not, but he certainly used a thumb pick. Uh, so you can either use a pick and fingers or just fingers. I've been kind of doing fingers just because I, I'm kinda liking that kind of, uh, slightly muted, swampy. What the pad that the thumb gives as opposed to using a pick. Oh cool though, alright. So um basically this little er little thing I've come up with. He's using 3 chords, you know, the, the blues chords, you know, so in E. We've got an A and then we're using the kind of cowboy B7 chord. Uh, which is gonna be 212, open, 2 string, 2. Doing a little tonic dominant with it. But not quite Johnny Cash like that. Uh, so let's get straight into it, so it's starting off. Doing a boom boom, alright, so you're gonna be on the 5th string, 2nd fret. And then like I say, I'm using my thumb, you could either, as if you were holding a pick, you could do that or use the thumb. And I'm doing a slight little mute. So, you know, side of my hand on the bridge there. Alright, so you've got a bom bom, and then uh let me show you about putting the bass note in. So again, very Delta blues using our 2nd finger, our favourite finger on the 2nd string, 3rd fret. Sliding forward to the 5th right. And then going back to the 3rd threat. And open. Right, so on its own like that, nice and easy. But we're gonna put a little bit of a bass note in there, so we're gonna go boom boom. Then open uh bottom string and then back to our 3rd. Hitting both the two strings there, 2nd and 1st strings. And then hitting the 6th string and the top 2 strings at the same time. So you got that. OK, got that happening, a little bit slower. Alright, so you might wanna just loop that over a little bit, so you're getting used to that. Alright, getting that kind of independence with the thumb and the fingers. Again, if you're using a pick, just so you can see. So it works, and it louder and brighter as well using a pick, you know, like this is using a lectrum is the biggest effect pedal there is, alright. So, and then after that. So after you've done this bit. We're gonna do 2 open 6 strings. And then doing a classic bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom, alright, so 2nd threat on the fish string, I'm sure you've done this before, but 2nd threat on the fish string. Going between the 2nd threat and the 4th threat, alright, so all together we got. Alright, just so you can hear it with the plextrum as well. OK, er if you're getting little mistakes in there and and a few open strings ring out, go with it, you know, that's kind of part of the the sound as well, you know. So we've got that happening, and then we go to the 4 chord, so E, F, G, A, alright, well, sorry, A. So the four chord is an A chord, and we're doing an A7, and we're kind of, if you think of it, there's your, you know, good old A major chord. On that 2nd fret. And then what we're gonna do, I personally use my ring finger, my 3rd finger, we're gonna put that 3rd finger on the G and that is creating a, a 7th chord. Kind of a cool bluesy, quote unquote jazzy kind of sound, right. Now this is gonna be very, very similar. So we're gonna do a. You know, do a boom boom, but this time just move that first finger down. And then er what the, the melody line's gonna be. Is doing that So we'll be on to make that dominant 7, our 3rd finger on there. Then hitting it again. And then taking our third finger off so we've got that F on the 2nd fret ringing out there, so. So you've got that happening, so it'll be with that open string, the fish string going on, so we've got the. That happened in there Then open fish string, and then. Top 2 strings again, and then when you take your 3rd finger off for the 2nd fret on both the top 2 strings. We'll have the open fish string ringing out with it. And then there'd be, be two lots on the 2nd fret, boom boom, and then round our bom bom bom bom bom bom bom boom cycle there. Alright, so on the E, we're gonna do it 4 times and then on the A part we're gonna do it twice. OK, so all together, nice and slowly. And then back to the E. Exactly the same thing. And then we're gonna go to a B7 chord, uh, like I was saying to you before, the cowboy chord. Cowboy B7. And when it hit the fish string. And do that kind of twice, you know, you can muck around with this rhythm any way you want. I'm kind of, you know, but between hitting that fish string. Then move my second finger up to give it a bit of a walking base. So hitting that dominant, the, the F sharp. My thumb is doing the, the, the 5th and 6th strings there. If you wanna use a pic a plectrum, a pic apitrum. We have that, all right? Um, And then we're gonna go to our Acord. And do pretty much exactly the same thing again. So I'll be hitting the fish string And then Hitting the top two strings, so 2nd fret and the 2nd string, 3rd fret and the 1st string. Open fish Back to it again. And then doing, uh, taking our 3rd finger off so on the 2nd throw. And then doing our little bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom. and then back to the ear again. And then finish on an E7 chord. E chord with your third finger off. So let me play it to you er nice and slowly and er see how you get on with it. Now you might notice I've done some of those little ideas in there as well, you know, put all that in, little, little mutes and stuff, so, but get the, get the, you know, the foundation of it down first, and then start doing some little scratches in between it, you know, um. You know, where you're muting it, alright. But that's a nice kind of introduction to kind of get used to this kind of Lightnin Hopkins kind of feel. Um, have a bash of that, and then, uh, check out a slightly advanced version in the next video. Hope you're good, see you soon, Mike Brady sign out. Bye.