Frank Stokes grew up playing the Blues before WWI, when it was just an obscure local folk music from the north of the Mississippi Delta. His tremendous voice and skillful guitar work helped to popularize the Blues as he toured all over the South in Doc Watts Medicine Show, provided entertainment at parties and fish-fries where he was invited to play, and 'busking' in the streets for spare change. Before recording or broadcasting, wandering players like Frank were the only way the Blues could be heard outside its home environment, and when he did get a chance to make records, the quality of his work shone through.

Frank played in Jack Kelly's Jug Busters, as the Jug Band craze took hold in the 1920s. Together with Dan Sane they became known as 'The Beale Street Sheiks', sometimes adding Will Betts on fiddle, and often being invited to play for white audiences. He recorded 38 sides for Paramount and Victor, including his blend of blues, ragtime, minstrel tunes, and popular songs which made his repertoire one of the most interesting of its time. He possessed a remarkable voice and was an skillful guitarist. His recordings influenced guitarists and blues singers across the South. With the arrival of the Great Depression and the decrease in recording opportunities, Stokes and Sane went back to playing street corners, occasional circuses, and traveling shows. He passed away September 12, 1955.

In this lesson Tom Feldmann teaches the ins and outs of 10 classic Frank Stokes arrangements in C, D, A, G and E positions. This a great lesson for players of all levels looking to build a repertoire of blues and good-time tunes.

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. In addition the original recordings of all the tunes are included.

Titles include:Take Me Back, Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do, I Got Mine, How Long, Mr. Crump Don't Like It, Stomp That Thing, Memphis Rounders Blues, Bedtime Blues, Sweet To Mama, Mistreatin' Blues

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

Review: For being the crowned "Creator of Memphis Blues," Frank Stokes never really gets his rightful ovation. His fame is not of the everybody-knows-your-name kind. Nevertheless, he was dutifully there, already hustling on the city's streets and back-country fish fries not long after the 1900s dawned. Then helping Doc Watts Medicine Show whoop it up, and eventually beating the Mississippi Sheiks onto record, by three years, with his own Beale Street Sheiks, the fruitful partnership with second guitarist Dan Sane. That was all prior to 1930. Having died by 1955, however, meant missing out on any firsthand chances to fire up folks during the blues revival, to be a comeback darling of the 1960s festival circuits, much as did the subsequently more recognized Furry Lewis. Fortunately though, Tom Feldmann studiously caught Stokes Fever. And it's such an easy one to catch - given the music's straightforwardness, easily managed chord progressions and overall goodtime contagiousness - that you and he breeze through "Stomp That Thing,""Mr. Crump Don't Like It," and eight other zoomers. And zoomers they are: Stokes' lively approach typically relies upon three chords and a cloud of dust. Even stuffed to the brim with creatively aching lyrics, no amount of emotional burden is going to derail their sweeping sense of linear motion. So let "Mistreatin' Blues" coil its worrying grip. Allow "Take Me Back" to desperately plead away. Because beneath, pick and pluck campaigns rally so undeterred that you're shielded by strings that zip and hop along without a hint of worry. - Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag

Review: "One of the great things about learning Frank Stokes's music" says Tom Feldman in his introduction, "is that once you've learned the first verse and the intro, then you've pretty much got the song well learned." Ten songs are taught in this 83-minute DVD , including Take Me Back, Stomp That Thing, Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do, Memphis Rounders Blues and (surprising recent McDonalds advert soundtrack) I Got Mine. Standard tuning is deployed throughout, with frequent use of a capo in the C, D, G, A and E fingering positions. Stokes's music, while relatively simple, has an inherent swing and bounce that Feldman captures and transmits perfectly. The Frank Stokes DVD is eminently suitable for all ability levels. The DVD features the usual Guitar Workshop high-standard split-screen camera angles and includes a PDF booklet of the tablature and notation, plus bonus audio sections with all the original recordings. - Steve Hunt/fRoots

Review: This Tom Feldman DVD furthers the cause featuring the guitar work of Frank Stokes, whose songs with The Beale Street Sheiks qualify as Jug Band style material too. They were just a two guitar duo, and Tom is teaching Frank's parts, I guess Dan Sane would be another lesson, and not so many guys are trying to learn second guitar. Feldman is a really good teacher! Stokes' playing reminds me of Mississippi John Hurt's, but maybe a little simpler, at least on the first song taught, "Take Me Back." One of Frank's tunes taught here, "I Got Mine," is a stone classic top of the line Country Blues/Ragtime piece. Actually, he may have others, it's usually a mistake to assume a guy only had one really good song in him! In fact Geoff Muldaur remodeled another of his pieces (not taught here), "Downtown Blues," and recorded it at least a couple times, once with the Kweskin Jug Band. The same pattern is followed as all the others we've reviewed by Tom Feldman. This time I went and listened to the original Beale Street Sheiks tracks first - Tom encourages folks to go listen to them before getting to his split screen slow play of the songs, so they could aim for the feel on the original track in their own playing. If you're learning to play Country Blues, you really should have already picked up one of Tom Feldman's DVDs, or others from the Guitar Workshop! Never too late to start, if you haven't! On this one you can learn licks in 5 different keys - C, D, A, G and E. It bears repeating that this DVD also includes a PDF file with the tablature for the guitar parts, and the lyrics to all the songs. Another of the songs, "Mr. Crump Don't Like It," is really ripe for a contemporary rewrite with the name of a certain Republican Presidential candidate. Considering he owns (or did own) a Casino, it needs new words. You'd think someone would have attempted this already, but I haven't heard it. Check this stuff out! - Marc Bristol/Blue Suede News

 

 

 

"Tom Feldmann is an instrumentalist of the first degree, renowned among guitarists as an instructor and preservationist. No one can teach Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Skip James or Bukka White better than Feldmann, a master fingerpicker and slide guitarist." – Living Blues

"Robert Johnson is the most important blues musician who ever lived. I have never found anything more deeply soulful. His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice." - Eric Clapton

"Robert Johnson's music sent me reeling. I couldn't even imagine how someone could play the guitar the way he did and sing at the same time." - Bonnie Raitt

Robert Johnson is arguably the most well known figure in the history of the blues. Though the 29 songs Johnson recorded from 1936-1937 had little impact during his lifetime, a collection of his singles, entitled King of the Delta Blues Singers was released in 1961 and found widespread recognition. Then, 30 years later, The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson was released selling over one million copies. The first blues recording to do so, winning a Grammy in the process.

Since that 1961 LP, players from all different musical backgrounds have sought to learn Robert Johnson's techniques and in this 3 DVD set, with over 5 hours and 52 minutes of instruction, Tom Feldmann covers every aspect of Johnson's playing. Each song is performed by Feldmann before he dissects the arrangement verse-by-verse and ends with a split screen segment where the song is played slowly with close up shots of both the left and right hands. This is the most expansive look into the guitar playing of Robert Johnson produced in video form.

DVD ONE: STANDARD TUNING: Kind Hearted Woman, Phonograph Blues, 32-20 Blues, A Blues Variations (Dead Shrimp Blues, Little Queen of Spades, Honeymoon Blues), I'm a Steady Rolling Man, Sweet Home Chicago, Love In Vain, From Four 'Til Late DROP D TUNING: Malted Milk CROSS NOTE TUNING: Hellhound on my Trail

DVD TWO: SPANISH TUNING: Stop Breakin' Down Blues, Walking Blues, Come On In My Kitchen, Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Stones In My Passway with Variations for Terraplane Blues and Milkcow Blues, Cross Road Blues, Traveling Riverside Blues

DVD THREE: SPANISH TUNING: If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day, VESTAPOL TUNING (OPEN E TUNING): Rambling on my Mind, I Believe I'll Dust My Broom, Preaching Blues, STANDARD TUNING: They're Red Hot

352 minutes - Level 3 - Detailed tab/music booklet PDF file included on each DVD

Review: Over the intervening decades since Robert Johnson cut his 29 monolithic sides in 1936 and 1937, countless manhours have been spent by countless guitarists hunched over spinning 78s, then LPs, then CDs, and now spinless MP3s, desperately trying to latch onto the mystical powers inherent in those songs - in that sound - which launched as many legions of rockers as of bluesmen. With Johnson's direct apostles below ground - Robert Lockwood, Honeyboy Edwards, Johnny Shines (who thrice returns, via bonus performance footage) - Tom Feldmann is your best possible instructor. The country blues junkie has put in those countless hours intensively detailing everything from the lemon squeezing "Traveling Riverside Blues" to the tamale-peddling "They're Red Hot" - so that you don't have to. He's got the complete canon down cold (come on, both takes of "Cross Road Blues" get dissected here). Right down to that spine-tingling 'howling wind' slide lick dripping down "Come On in My Kitchen." Even down to that momentary flash of wickedness in the fourth verse of "Walking Blues" when string bends actually snap. With calm coaching, you'll run the existential table from the Son House knockoff of "Preaching Blues" to "Hellhound on My Trail," with a "Malted Milk" break in between. Besides using the slo-mo split-screen, Feldmann makes learning easier by wisely corralling similar pieces, as when taking advantage of the structural relationship between "Terraplane Blues" and "Milkcow's Calf Blues" with "Stones in My Passway." Tremendous clout resides within three how-to DVDs, for herein lie both the kindling and the spark which lit the firestorm of modern blues and rock. So the calculus is simple: Six hours of one-on-one Robert Johnson instruction equals essential. - Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag

 

"Blind Willie Johnson had great dexterity. He could play all of these sparking little melody lines. There’s fabulous syncopation. He’d keep his thumb going real strong.... I never could figure out how in the world he got such a busy sound playing so little.... Of course, I’ve tried all my life - worked very hard and every day of my life, practically - to play in that style... He’s so good - I mean, he’s just so good! Beyond a guitar player. I think the guy is one of these interplanetary world musicians, the kind of person they talk about in that Nada Brahma book, where the world is sound and everything is resonating." – Ry Cooder

Blind Willie Johnson recorded thirty songs from 1927-1930 and of those thirty he used a slide on only twelve. There has been much debate surrounding how he played and what he played with, but regardless of "how" or "what" those twelve songs stand as some of the best slide guitar ever recorded.

In this lesson Tom Feldmann breaks down the complexities of eight of Johnson’s classics. You will see how Johnson created his “as you feel” bass lines by utilizing alternating, monotonic and “brushing” bass techniques. Of course, the defining element of Johnson’s songs was his unearthly slide playing which Tom shows in detail teaching you Johnson’s strike and slides, pull-offs and vibrato.

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. In addition, the original recordings of all the tunes are included.

Titles include: Bye And Bye I’m Goin’ To See The King, You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond, Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground, God Don’t Never Change, Lord I Just Cant Keep From Crying, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning, I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole and Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed

128 minutes • Level 2/3 • Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: Not only was Blind Willie Johnson saddled with sightlessness. The street corner evangelist was also afflicted with a buzz saw for a voice and the inability to err on bottleneck guitar. From 1927 through 1930, he waxed 30 miracles at 78 rpm speed. Twelve of those employed use of that heavenly slide; all of them were brought down from the mountaintop. Everyone from Dylan and Beck to The White Stripes has vouched for that by performance. Now you can actively tap the intensity within The Guitar Of Blind Willie Johnson, too. Bottleneck whiz Tom Feldmann transfers the power over step-by step, lick-by-lightning-bolt-lick.

Each of the eight songs dissected on his instructional DVD sports its own personality; from the Glory-bound “Bye And Bye I'm Goin' To See The King” to the speedy genius of “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed.” You'll learn how to perform the miracle of syncopating like a madman while getting an ordinary bottleneck to pray right along with “God Don't Never Change.” And how to truly tingle spines over “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.” It's ghostly moan'n'drone is a touch of the oblivion from out of this world. (Figuratively, as well as literally, since a copy is currently rocketing through outer space aboard the Voyager's time capsule.) Also included are Johnson's original audio recordings, the lyrics, and a video topper of Mississippi Fred McDowell gliding along “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning.”  Sorry - but tips on achieving Johnson's gargled-razor vocals are not included. – Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag