Delta Blues Guitar from Dockery Plantation – Tom Feldmann

Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. Created by black musicians who lived and worked on the farms in north Mississippi, these men and women drew on influences from church songs, prison songs, African rhythms, and early American folk traditions to fashion a new form of music. Unbeknownst to them, the music created in this relatively small area that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers would spread the world over and shape musical history.

In this lesson Tom Feldmann takes you to where it all began, Dockery Plantation, dubbed “The Birthplace of the Blues”, and highlights the earliest recording artists that gave Dockery its legendary status, Charlie Patton, Son House, Willie Brown and Tommy Johnson.

You will learn a few songs by each artist, giving you a taste of the individuals themselves as well as the genre as a whole. The majority of the lesson is done out of standard tuning, focusing on E, C and A positions. From standard tuning you move to Drop D tuning for Tommy Johnson’s Big Road Blues and then to Open G (Spanish tuning) for Willie Brown’s Future Blues.

Of course no lesson on Delta blues guitar would be complete without a look at bottleneck slide and this lesson is no exception with Feldmann closing with two trailblazers of bottleneck slide, Son House and Charlie Patton.

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. In addition the original recordings of all the tunes are included.

Titles include: STANDARD TUNING: M&O Blues, Stone Pony Blues, 34 Blues, Morning Prayer Blues, A Down The Staff, Lonesome Home Blues DROP D TUNING: Big Road Blues SPANISH TUNING: Future Blues, Levee Camp Moan, It Won’t Be Long

152 minutes • Level 2/3 • Detailed tab/music PDF booklet