I'm looking for some stuff to listen to that's similar to the style of guitar on Little Wing by Hendrix. Combined rhythm and lead, not much backing it, melodic.
I've mostly listened to the blues classics (Muddy Waters, the Kings, Stevie) and older, acoustic delta blues. I've been learning Little Wing and how to play Hendrix style rhythm guitar and would love some inspiration.
Posted Nov 26, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC
Curtis Mayfield is the godfather of that style
Rory Gallagher's "a million miles away" is a good one. Live is always better with him too. For acoustic stuff his "wheels within wheels" album is amazing
I would say more disciples of Hendrix may include Mato Nanji of Indigenous, Robin Trower, SRV, Doyle Bramhall, Jeff Healy, Eric Gales, and David Hidalgo outside of Los Lobos.
Jack Johnson says he is mostly influenced by Hendrix’ Electric Lady Land and it shows in a lot of his music. Stripped down guitar melodies, playful bass lines and genuine feeling in a lot of songs like Broken, Radiate, Do You Remember, Taylor, Big Sur, plenty of others.
If you're into some heavier blues a la Stevie Ray Vaughan, you should definitely give Kenny Wayne Shepherd a listen. Something like 'What's Goin Down' for example
All of Axis Bold as Love is good. Bold as Love is probably my second favorite track off that album.
There are tons of examples in Neo-Soul and Gospel. Start with Isaiah Sharkey and follow his influences.
I was going to say this for sure, modern gospel guitar has a lot of this
Check out Jamie Harrison Guitar on YouTube. He does a lot of demos of this style of playing. His lessons aren’t free though and I haven’t tried them but might be worth it if you want to dive into this style. He does Lenny by SRV, Bold as Love, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room etc.
Check out Monte Montgomery. I haven't seen or heard much from him lately, but I saw him solo a few times and man he's damn good.
If you haven’t heard Stevie Ray Vaughan’s version of Little Wing you are really missing out, I think he won a grammy for it (or at least nominated but should have won).
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Pearl Jam’s yellow leadbetter is a bit similar to that style I always thought
Check out the other stuff made by Hendrix then
I've listened to Axis: Bold as Love for multiple days straight at this point lol.
You should check out John Mayer’s cover! His tone is incredible and adds some licks here and there to learn.
I also think Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam has a somewhat similar feel and just an awesome Strat-based sound.
Edit: also SRV’s take on Little Wing is fantastic which I’m assuming you’ve heard
Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) has a lot of licks mixed with his chords. He’d be a good one to look at even if it isn’t the blues
If you listen to any of John Mayer's acoustic performances of his own songs you can tell that pretty much all of his songs start out as just guitar pieces. He's really good at playing his melodies at the same time as his bass or chord progressions.
Fingerstyle (or hybrid picking) is another great way to get this kind of combined rhythm and melody going. The thumb holds down the rhythm with the bass line and the rest of your fingers can fill out the other notes in the chord while also picking out a melody over top of it. There's then a lot of things you can do with muting and slaps to really bring out the groove of the rhythm.
I’ve spent way too long trying to get the fingerpicking down on Stop This Train! Public opinion has changed on this over the years obviously, but I’ve always thought Mayer is amazingly talented.
Yes, I don't think I made it as clear in my post as in my head, but I've done some extensive fingerstyle guitar learning, particularly inspired by Mayer. I learned Heart of Life, Stop this Train, and the Neon riff. He's a huge reason that I started playing guitar in the first place.
Something Like Olivia (acoustic)is one of the songs I had in mind when I made this post.
Fingerstyle is definitely where you want to be for combined rhthym and lead and I feel more comfortable with fingerstyle acoustic guitar than I do with my electric guitar and a pick. I've done way more fingerstlye blues than electric blues and I've got the thumb bass line down now. I'm looking to branch out on the backs of inspiration from Hendrix (bold as love, little wing, castles made of sand, wait until tomorrow) and Mayer songs like Who did you think I was, come when I call,
I totally agree with your below comment that some of his stuff can seem super simple but is actually incredible difficult.
Just put Yellow Ledbetter on and with the first 2 bars I was just like shit yea this is exactly what I wanted. Thanks. I've heard this song before, but never played attention to the guitar part as much!
I'm a huge John Mayer fan - he's one of the reasons I started learning guitar.
Band of Gypsies FTW.
Well you kind of hit on it already. Look for players that are influenced by Hendrix. Guys like SRV, Mayer, Frusciante, etc.
Mayer and Frusciante might not be the style you like as much, but both can offer great licks/skills to steal and utilize in the style of play you’re interested in