groove

Another tune with a strong hook by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The hook is presented below, but harp players don't commonly play the entire hook, just the last two notes (same pattern as the common Charleston rhythm, but with straight eighths for this rock beat).

I7 = 1 2" 2' 2 2

IV7 = 2 3' 3 4+ 4+

V7 = 3" 4+ 4' 4 4

"Tramp" provides our most common rock beat (straight-eighths) in the blues. You can hear derivations of this groove in William Clarke's "Pawnshop Bound" and my recent "Here We Go" on the It Takes Three CD. This song also provides a good challenge of dealing with what's basically a 12 Bar Blues in nature, but with an irregular length (some of the chords are double in length and it's not consistent from chorus to chorus). The band's challenge is to turn the form into a consistent form. continue reading...

Our next song on the School of the Blues House Band Standards list is "T-Bone Shuffle." We use the Boz Scaggs version in G (from the Come On Home album), with the harp player commonly using a C Harp. continue reading...