2 minute read
Tales from Nerdville
COLUMNS TALES FROM NERDVILLE
by Joe Bonamassa
IN THE CARDS
Revisiting Fleetwood Mac’s “Lazy Poker Blues” for Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2
FIG. 1
For video of this lesson, go to guitarworld.com/december2022
AS I MENTIONED last month, I recently recorded a follow-up to my 2003 album Blues Deluxe, titled Blues Deluxe, Vol. 2, for which I used a similar template, covering a handful of my favorite blues classics. One of the songs featured on Vol. 2 is Fleetwood Mac’s “Lazy Poker Blues.” I’m, of course, referring to the original incarnation of the band that included the great British blues guitarist Peter Green. I’m a huge fan of his, especially his sort of nonchalant performance approach of, “Let’s just wing it and see how it goes!”
“Lazy Poker Blues” is a standard blues shuffle in the key of E, featuring a signature lick along the lines of FIGURE 1. Played with a triplet feel and swing eighth notes, the song follows a 12-bar form consisting of four bars on the I (one) chord, E7, followed by two bars on the IV (four), A7, then two bars on the I, leading to single bars on the V (five) chord, B7, the IV, the I and, finally, the V, which “turns the progression around,” setting up its repetition, “from the top.”
FIGURE 2 presents an improvised solo of mine that’s inspired by Peter’s style, borrowing a few of his characteristic phrasing moves. In bars 1-3, I repeatedly pre-bend the D note at the 15th fret on the B string up a whole step, to E, with half-step pre-bends, from D to D#, played between the wholestep bends. I’m using the bridge pickup on my Les Paul here and picking aggressively, to emulate Peter’s signature attack.
The majority of these licks are based on the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D), but in bar 4 I drop in the 6th, C#, which functions as the major 3rd of the IV chord, A7 (A, C#, E, G). I play a bit freely through the remainder of this chorus, resulting in a slightly truncated 10-bar form. Bars 11-22 represent the standard 12-bar blues form detailed earlier.
In bars 11 and 12, I repeatedly sound unison bends on the top two strings, fretting the high E note (1st string,12th fret) along with the D note on the 2nd string's 15th fret, pre-bent up a whole step to E. This technique is another hallmark of Peter Green’s blues vocabulary.
For the next six bars (13-18), I remain in
FIG. 2
12th position and get a lot of mileage out of that handful of notes. In bars 19 and 20, over B7 and A7, I use 6th intervals, or 6ths (pairs of notes six scale degrees apart) as a means to move down the fretboard as I wrap up the solo down in 1st position.
Just take a sunburst Les Paul, plug it into an early Marshall amplifier, set to “stun,” and you will most likely be well happy with the results.
Next month I’ll be back with “Peter Green, part two.” See you then!
