Here’s my cover of Justin Johnson’s ‘Whiskey Barrel Blues‘. This was one of those songs that as soon as I heard it, I was like hot diggity dog, I needs to cover that song! I think it’s important to push yourself as a slide guitar player, and this was definitely a challenge to play. Needless to say I had to knock back a cheeky dram of whiskey before the take! 😉
Chock full of cigar box slide guitar wizardry…
Now they don’t call Justin Johnson the cigar box slide guitar wizard for nothing. This track is full of challenging picking, slapping and lightning quick slide guitar riffs. It certainly made my head spin when I first started learning it, but as with any new song, I trusted my process and it slowly came together. I learnt this song in open D tuning and then transposed it to open E to match Justin’s original version.
Learn to fly – simple techniques taken to the next level…
I’m always trying to improve my technique and knowledge of slide guitar. I firmly believe that if you want to get good at anything, you need to learn from the masters. I’ve been aware of Justin Johnson for a little while now and I must say his technique, tone, and feel are just fantastic – this guy can really play! So I decided to take a couple of his slide guitar courses which you can find here. I learnt ‘Whiskey Barrel Blues‘ from Justin’s intermediate slide guitar course. The main thing that struck me about this course, was that it’s all about getting the basics right i.e. correct guitar positioning, muting with left and right hand, being mindful of intonation and anchoring correctly. I’ll dive into these techniques and more in future blog posts.
Stay tuned, more to follow…
As always thanks for reading and watching. Please leave your comments or suggestions below, as I love to hear from my fans and subscribers. In the next instalment I’ll be releasing another song I learnt from Justin called ‘Sunset Blues‘, which is a Delta blues inspired piece.
Take it easy,
Lawless Luke
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