The blues has always been spiced with suggestive metaphors. This collection of bawdy blues songs celebrates the off-color blues repertoire: Bessie Smith is wild about her kitchen man's turnip tops, but Bo Carter's pencil won't write no more! There's lots of variety, with songs from the 1930s, 40s and 50s; some are simple three-chord blues tunes and others have beautiful, ragtimey chord changes.

Fred shows you how to play accompaniment and solos for all the songs. The evocative titles include Ain't Got Nobody to Grind My Coffee (Clara Smith), She's Your Cook But She Burns My Bread Sometimes and My Pencil Won't Write No More (Bo Carter), Kitchen Man (Bessie Smith), Big Ten Inch (Bull Moose Jackson), You Can't Tell the Difference After Dark (Alberta Hunter) and the holiday perennial Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby (Amos Milburn).

Fred shows you how to accompany yourself singing the songs, and how to fingerpick an instrumental version of each one. His easy-going instructional style, his tips on playing the arrangements, and his slowed-down, split-screen performances of each tune make learning easy. All the arrangements are written out in tab and music as well... both the backup and solos

91 minutes • Level 2 • Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: One of my favorite DVD guitar lessons. The songs are all (but one) a lot of fun to play and appropriately slighted just enough in double entendre to play for anyone, including kids. The lesson is for late beginner, Intermediate, and is well shot and constructed. The songs are interesting enough to play without singing, and the camera work is what we have come to expect from Grossman's productions: great camera angles, close ups, split screens, and wide angles. It is well taught, with songs well chosen, and is a lot of fun to play. ***** stars for great instruction, song selection and camera work. – Peter Hyatt/Amazon Customer Review