John Lee Hooker recorded hundreds of songs throughout his career that spanned from the late 1940's until his death in 2001. Very few blues musicians reached the heights that Hooker achieved, among his many awards Hooker was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

John Lee Hookers trademark one chord blues style can be traced back to his Mississippi roots where he first learned to play guitar and although often described as a simple technique, the rhythm found in his playing is the bedrock by which all things blues, fingerstyle, rock, etc., is based upon.

John Lee Hooker played out of standard tuning, E position, and Spanish tuning, typically Open A, and nearly all his recorded works fall into either category. Breaking this collection into two parts Feldmann walks you through every aspect of Hookers playing style in both Standard and Spanish tuning. You'll even be treated to live video footage of Hooker performing the tunes taught out of Standard tuning on electric, and more rare, acoustic guitar.

Whether your looking to learn Hookers songs, licks, or playing style you'll find those elements in spades, plus most importantly you'll improve your rhythmic technique which will benefit your own playing regardless of genre.

Tunes include: Maudie, Tupelo, MS, I'll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive, Boom Boom, Boogie Chillen, Hobo Blues, I'm A Crawling King Snake, Bundle Up and Go

118 minutes - Level 2 - Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: Stomping out a John Lee Hooker song on guitar comes with a certain untold power. Imagine the visceral rush from personally running down “Boogie Chillen,” the groove heard ’round the world. Or knowing the ins and outs when creeping through the iconic labyrinth of doom, “I’ll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive.” Or having “I’m a Crawling King Snake” slither from beneath your own fingers. Tom Feldmann—who has altruistically also broken the code to Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and a score more greats—now diligently teaches you how-how-how-how to attain badass blues nirvana by harnessing The Guitar of John Lee Hooker.

The two-hour master class is a complete boogie ’n’ blues kit, stocked with step-by-step guidance, tab/music notation, lyrics, and even vintage footage of John Lee performing half of the lesson plan. By transferring the blueprints to eight songs (divided between standard and Spanish tunings), along with basic Hooker design elements (landmark riffs as well as signature strum patterns, finger brushes, bass rumbles, trills, hammer-ons and bends), you’ll be well prepped to springboard off into one of the deepest, most mesmeric discographies ever to have been spawned by misery. Because it is one thing to listen to the almighty “Boom Boom,” but it’s a vastly more intense experience to physically pump the chord while howling out “I’m gonna shoot you right down, right off your feet.” As did everyone from the Doors to George Thorogood to ZZ Top, tap into that Hooker power. – Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag

Review: One of the very latest recordings by Tom Feldmann, as part of the mighty Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop series. Regular readers will know that I have raved about the range and high quality of the DVDs that issue forth from the Guitar Workshop and this latest offering is no exception. It is hard to remember but JLH passed away in 2001 and you could regard this as a belated tribute to the man. Tom Feldmann is of course much younger but has immersed himself in Country Blues since the time that he started playing and is a particularly good exponent of the huge back catalogue that John left us with. As Tom points out, he recorded in excess of 300 songs, many of which were reworkings of older songs, however he tended to favor standard tuning in E and open tuning in A, he played both acoustic and electric, but largely played in the same style regardless. He was notorious for varying the number of chords in any live performance and must have been a bloody nightmare to support! Although of course for the greater part of his recording career he was a solo artist. On a DVD that runs for just shy of 2 hours you will get the chance to learn and play long with 10 JLH songs, and there are several film clips of him playing them. There is of course the well-known high-quality PDF booklet that you can download, giving you a hard copy that includes the TAB. So just to make my usual point once more; another high-quality issue that will be of great use to any would be JLH tribute act! – Dave Stone/Blues Matters

Review: The instructional DVDs authored by master acoustic blues guitarist Tom Feldmann provide not only lessons in how to play the music - whether it's Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters or other greats - they are also lessons steeped deep in guitar history. And his latest delves into one of the most idiosyncratic of Mississippi bluesmen, John Lee Hooker. The Hook's playing seems simple enough; forget three chords and the truth, he often nails it with just one chord. But there's a unique virtuosity hidden within that simplicity, and Feldmann unveils the rhythms and stylings in Hooker's right-hand technique. Feldmann teaches the templates for songs and rhythm structures that Hooker played in standard, Spanish and Open-A tunings. Even better, there's rare live footage of Hooker performing some of the tunes on electric and (even rarer) acoustic guitar. – Michael Dregni/Vintage Guitar