Top 5 All-Time Blues Harp sampler.zip

If you check out the FAQs page at ModernBluesHarmonica.com, you'll find that I offer my own Top 10 and Second 10 lists of all-time blues harmonica greats. In general, I don't believe in ranking players, but the guys who sit at the very top are truly irreplaceable: Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, James Cotton, John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson, and Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller).

This collection gives you a focused lesson--video and tab(s)--on a representative song by each of those players:

Little Walter, "Blues With a Feeling"
Big Walter Horton (with Carey Bell), "Have a Good Time"
James Cotton, "How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong"
John Lee Williamson, "John Lee Williamson's Blues"
Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) Williamson, "Sonny Boy's Blues"

The first three lessons offer you my transcriptions of an intro, chorus, and/or solo by the player in question. The lessons on the Sonny Boys are my transcription/adaptation of each player's most representative 12-bar chorus.

Four of the lessons are played in second position on harps in the key of D, C, and F. The James Cotton lesson is played in first position on an A harp. PLEASE NOTE: You will need FOUR DIFFERENT KEY HARPS to play through these lessons.

Altogether, you get five videos of roughly 15-17 minutes each, plus six tab sheets (one of which was already a free download). If you paid full price for each file, they'd cost you $35. I'm offering them here for only $25.

In other words, you get the tabs for free. One (big) zip file to download and you're ready to go.

$25 for more than 75 minutes of instruction, plus six tab sheets. If you saw me for a private lesson, I'd charge $50-60 an hour and give you two songs to work through. You've got more than two-and-a-half times as much to work on here, for less than half the price. And the video format allows you to replay them again and again to pick up the subtleties.

All five lessons are pitched at the Intermediate/Advanced Intermediate level.

I've attached a preview for Big Walter's "Have a Good Time" to this webpage. For more information about the individual lessons, plus previews, please hit the link to the lesson in question on my website.

Another Modern Blues Harmonica production (www.modernbluesharmonica.com)