DVD Review: Guitar Signature Licks: Robert Johnson

DVD Review: Guitar Signature Licks: Robert Johnson

Taught by Scott Ainslie

B000BYMIDC

Scott Ainslie is an expert on the guitar style of Delta Blues guitar great Robert Johnson. Throughout the DVD Ainslie teaches the learner about different guitar tunings and picking patterns that are popular in Robert Johnson's songs. When Ainslie presents a song he presents it with the opening riffs, into the verses and chorus. Lastly he puts all the riffs together to present to the whole song pattern together with vocals.

The DVD comes with a booklet with music notation and tablature. It is a small booklet that presents tabs of riffs but not the complete song. One of the drawbacks of this DVD set is the linkage between the DVD and booklet. At no time does Ainslie refer to the booklet. A simple "this is riff #22 in the enclosed booklet" would have been helpful to the learner. I found myself getting lost in the booklet when Ainslie was playing "Walking Blues."

Another drawback is that guitar riffs are presented both in the booklet and DVD from Honey Boy Edwards and Lonnie Johnson. While these riffs are very interesting and fit very well in the Delta Blues genre, they were not the intent of the DVD. The objective of the DVD is to teach the guitar styles of Robert Johnson, not other delta blues players playing Robert Johnson.

The songs that Ainslie covers are:

Kind Hearted Woman Blues

Sweet Home Chicago

Drunken Hearted Man

Ramblin on My Mind

Walkin Blues

Come on in my Kitchen

Cross Roads Blues

The DVD is slightly over an hour long. It contains bonus tracks on guitar techniques, practice tips and jam-along songs. The DVD could have been much longer and spent more time on many of the other songs. I had to substitute this DVD set with other books about Robert Johnson in order to get lyrics and complete guitar tabs.