Hear It Here

JOE BONAMASSA Dust Bowl

This album sits between blues, rock and country in the same way I was going for with the examples. Check out Black Lung Heartache with its acoustic/mandolin intro and Heartbreaker, with its shades of Free and Deep Purple – no doubt helped by Glenn Hughes on vocals! Finally, Prisoner takes a more laid-back but no less epic approach; it takes a confident soloist to ‘bring the fight’ to arrangements and production like this.

DICKEY BETTS Live at Rockpalast 2008

Dickey brings driven, sustained notes and intricate phrasing with careful note choices to tracks such as Nothing You Can Do and Blue Sky, which has some tricky harmony guitar, too! Havin’A Good Time also demonstrates a soloing style, which takes as much from country and rock as it does from blues – lots of major pentatonics and scale fragments that offer an alternative approach to the more common minor-based approach.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD

Pronounced ‘Le˘h-’nérd ‘Skin-’nérd

I think we all know about Freebird, but before we move on, check out the ferocity of that final solo – double-tracking also adds a layer of intensity, especially when some variations creep into the faster licks, but this is an excellent template for the idea of impressive blues-based licks. Simple Man and Tuesdays’s Gone also throw down the gauntlet to any soloist. If you’re going to step up here, it has to be good!