00:07hey hey hey blues fans this is your number one blues man larry mccray and i'm here in new york
00:12city a guitar world and uh i'm i want to shout out to you at uh something for you that
00:18absolutely
00:19changed my life changed my approach about blues it's no secrets but it's just something that was
00:25an epiphany for me that changed things for me and i want to share some of that with you this
00:29morning one of my favorite things uh that i learned was what i call the albert king wide bend so
00:36you
00:37hear players like stevie ray vaughn albert king you know use it a lot stevie was probably one of the
00:43closest uh albert prodigies ever i mean you know he really it really registered and touched him to
00:50his throat but one of the things what they were doing that's the albert wide bend
01:00so instead of on your e string you go to your b string a step and a half above and
01:07you push it
01:08until it comes all the way see so it's very wide so when you get this part of it
01:19it can sound like like the airplane is coming down it's falling down but another thing that he used
01:25with that being also once albert would do that sometime he would do
01:42albert king
01:58so my whole point being is instead of maybe always it's a wider bend
02:20mr albert king
02:22you know the mount rushmore of the blues for me would be bb king albert king albert collins and
02:33freddy king so we just did one of albert's wide bends that's probably one of the things that
02:39registered the most with me from albert king is his wide bend as we said before
02:48he getting three notes
02:53and to have that control
02:58it's a very difficult bend so study a little albert king and i think you
03:01will appreciate that a lot more now my next one would be bb king
03:07still working in the key of a bb one of his most things that registered to me one of bb's
03:13wide
03:20bb king
03:29you know so
03:42mr bb king that's one of my favorite bb wide bands
03:52moving on down the line to the rushmore
03:56mr albert collins albert had a very very different style he tuned
04:02to a e minor chord so automatically he was tuned different and and and capable
04:10to change his key and one night i picked up his guitar i said you mind if i just try
04:15that
04:15for a little bit and i tried it man and it didn't take me but about 30 seconds to hand
04:20it right back to
04:21because then none of my boxes work on his guitar but um in my effort to try to
04:28sound and emulate some of his sound he had this thing with the capo being on he would
04:33you would always hear that
04:40you know like that so it's it's kind of hard in my tuning but you can use
04:48your octave so i go like this
04:54to try to get the same effect
04:57so he would go
05:08that was all about that
05:10you know that type of thing so
05:18so what i got going right there i'm using my octave starting on the d string
05:23and then i'm going to the seven
05:33see you're pulling off there
05:47mr alba collins
05:56so that thing there
06:22alba collins
06:36ice man
06:44all right that was albert moving on down the line to mr freddy king
06:53freddy had this thing freddy used the claws
06:56used the claw hammer picks and he would
07:01one of freddy's favorite thing
07:29mr freddy king
07:50freddy was all about the wide bend
07:59freddy was all about the wide bend
08:02so i mean you know another thing that i feel that um was very prevalent in my own life i'm
08:09southern
08:09raised i was from arkansas uh in the 60s and during that time that's the kind of music that
08:16that that that you heard the most of and that's what made me what registered the most with me
08:21outside of guitar music another one of my strongest influences was junior walker
08:26in terms of his approach to his solos and his heart and passion for the music.
08:32And so I try to use as much of that stuff as I can to Junior Head, this thing.
08:47Which felt very warm to me.
09:12Mr. Junior Walker.
09:17Mostly going into a four that notes really.
09:33So those are my guys right there.
09:36Those are my go-to's and outside of those guys, I turn to a gospel vocal for guitar inspiration
09:43because your guitar can reach places that you can't go with your voice.
09:48I'm a baritone and I sang in a very low register, but I like to.
09:53And, you know, use your instrument to be inspired to go places that you can't go with your voice.
10:12Sliding those notes when you can.
10:21All about the blues.
10:22I hope it's been helpful.
10:24My name is Larry McRae and it's me signing off from Guitar World.
10:28Don't forget, vocals are the key to your inspiration.
10:33Listen to you some good gospel, leave me the views, raise the hell out there, don't make no difference.
10:37You want to play some good blues, get you some gospel inspiration because it will make your guitar dazzle, I
10:43think.
10:43I got a new album out there on the KTBA label produced by Mr. Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith.
10:49It's called Heartbreak City.
10:51Some of the standout tunes on there I think would be Bye Bye Blues, Look on the Bright Side, and
10:57Everything Falls on Me.
10:58Not a bad track on the record, I don't believe.
11:00Check it out.
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