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.
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