George Thorogood Fingerpicking Guitar Lesson

George Thorogood Fingerpicking Guitar Lesson George Thorogood Technique & Approach to Playing Guitar World Yes I’m finger picker and never was able to master the art of holding a flat pick. I first started fooling around with guitars I strong attack on the right hand and the pick will always fall or something it’s amazing as my daughter has the same thing she has no use for picks she just plays with her hands you know and so I guess it’s a natural thing. I started off as an acoustic player you know acoustic guitars. I was error when I was seeing people like Brian McGee and used be Fred Mcdowell and John Hammond and they were all solo performers with acoustic guitars and that they all played in this finger picking style, thumb pick, finger pick and this sort of thing you know. [Demonstration] I want the story Bonnie Raitt played like that before she got electric she was acoustic player bottleneck player but it was a fairly common thing at that time and it was very in vougued in the late 60s early 70s and I was just picking up on that well at that time and not match away for me to clay was— and then when I saw Muddy Waters Johnny hooker and all that real greats used to be played the blues all played that way. So quite naturally when I was doing this Muddy Waters wasn’t originally acoustic player because when they started the word of electric guitars so they started out you know playing this way to full— to make it sound full so when I went the electric when we formed the band I said well I really got a grip of that so I kind of learned the way masters did the way they did it. So I said well if Keith Richards listen to Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, who did Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry listened to. So I would listen to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley so when these guys got it together I would say well who did they listen to so if they listen to Muddy Waters and Elmore James and then I said well who did Muddy Waters listen to and I would say Robert Johnson, that’s where I stopped. I stopped right there so I kind of have to go backwards to go forward so I do like a crash course Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Jimmy Reed then got into Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and I said just take it from there and take your. Also I listen to a lot of you know like country pickers too. People who did finger picking style in country bands. I had a whole album I listened a lot to flatten scrubs because they were country players. Real country players I’m going to talk to you about country and western music a marketable thing. I’m talking about something that the real country players because they couldn’t afford electric equipment and they would sit on back porches with these big acoustic boxes and picking out these rhythms and these styles you see and everybody did it. I saw Elizabeth Cotten play one day. I was lucky I saw here play one day she did that so I just said well I guess this is how it’s done and it will be long before the flat picking came in and the electric guitars and all that kind of thing so you know I just listen to those many things as I could and then building on top of that and then one day I can’t play acoustic guitar. I got a former band and I saw Hound Dog Taylor playing he had a thumb thing going in the finger. He’s going to play a slide. I said that’s what I got to do with. I’m going to get anywhere I can go around the rest of my life imitating John Hammond. I got to do something that was very difficult to do to play like Taj Mahal or John Hammond to play alone and make it full and do it for whole hour very, very hard. Now hats off to those cats who can do that because it’s very strenuous and you can’t make any mistakes and you break a string you’re dead. I just said, this is just too difficult to do so Jeff Simmons a childhood friend when I got together so we’re the former band. We got a band like hound dog Taylor we’re going to bet a 3 piece bail like canned heat and we’re going to open for Jay Guiles and we’re going to— okay let’s go to work see so I got this 125 from a pop shop and I said well it’s like an acoustic guitar because add fuls and arch top so I was able to pick it. I said I like fenders or the Gibson less pulse and I say can’t play those guitar so we found this guitar. If I hadn’t have found it I probably wouldn’t have a band because I couldn’t make that transition from acoustic to electric like so many others were able to do that. Johnny Hooker’s guitar are very much made like acoustic guitars playing the 330, playing the epiphone. Howlin Wolf had a big epiphone and he plays his delta blues and he plays like. [Demonstration] You know that kind of thing so they came from that and I said well that’s what I want to do and it wasn’t like I was searching just trying to make it as authentic as I could. It just so happened that’s the way I played.