"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

"Lonnie Johnson was the father of all the early blues guitarists. Everyone listened to him. He played and sang like a minister, with a very spiritualfeeling that went right through me and that I could immediately relate to and understand... Lonnie would play with people from other musical styles like jazz and gospel, which inspired me to stretch as a player." - B.B. King

Lonnie Johnson pioneered the single-string solo guitar styles that we are accustomed to hearing today in rock, blues and jazz music. He played with blues and jazz greats including Texas Alexander, Duke Ellingon, Louie Armstrong and Bessie Smith, and used the guitar as a solo instrument in jazz bands years before Charlie Christian. His recorded blues and jazz solos, including his famous duets with the early jazz guitarist Eddie Lang, are exemplary both for their incredibly beautiful guitar tone and for their sheer, jaw-dropping virtuosity. His To Do This You Got To Know How remains one of the most amazing guitar solos ever recorded.

Although he was influential beyond measure, his reputation has lately taken a back seat to more famous blues players whose influence is often exaggerated as much as Johnson's is underestimated.

In this double DVD, the first devoted in its entirety to the guitar style of Lonnie Johnson, Ari Eisinger explores Lonnie Johnson's blues style in detail, presenting stylistic hallmarks of Johnson's playing including a discussion of left hand fingerings, use of diminished chords and Lonnie's blues playing in the Key of D. Ari teaches eight guitar breaks from some of Lonnie's best tunes. These include his instrumental masterpiece To Do This You Got To Know How, his jazzy Uncle Ned Don't Use Your Head, his evocative Woke Up With the Blues In My Fingers and I'm So Tired Of Living All Alone, Lonnie's version of the song Skip James recorded as I'm So Glad.

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on each DVD. As well, the original old recordings of all the tunes are included.

167 minutes - Level 3 - Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: Another winner! A great introduction to the music of Lonnie Johnson by an experienced instructor. Patient teaching, including close up of both hands as well as step by step breakdown make this another winner from Stefan Grossmans' productions. Over the years the camera work, lighting and set have improved nicely. For intermediate players it is challenging. Ari is an experienced teacher who takes his students step by step through the more challenging areas. - Peter Hyatt/Amazon Customer Review

Review: Excellent Instruction and Another Gem from the Stefan Grossman Catalog. If you're a fan of Lonnie Johnson's guitar work, this double disc set is sure not to disappoint. Great split screens, alt. tuning help and insight, walkthroughs on a ton of scale work and chord/solo positioning as well as insight as to what made the man who invented the modern solo tick. Very satisfied with the product and will continue to purchase from this camp. - SK/Amazon Customer Review

Tommy Johnson (1896-1956) from Crystal Springs, Mississippi, was one of that state’s greatest blues singer/guitarists, an associate of Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Ishman Bracey, Charlie McCoy, Rube Lacy, the Mississippi Sheiks, and many others. Although he recorded fewer than two dozen tracks in 1928 and 1930, his influence was profound, as he encouraged other musicians to learn his songs and perform with him. Among those who later recorded versions of his songs were K. C. Douglas, Shirley Griffith, and Houston Stackhouse, and his musical ideas can be heard in the blues of Howlin’ Wolf, the Mississippi Sheiks, Robert Nighthawk, and blues rockers Canned Heat, to name just a few.

David Evans began researching Johnson’s life and music in 1964 and interviewed, recorded, and observed the performances of over a dozen musicians who knew and learned from Johnson, including his brother Mager Johnson, Babe Stovall, Roosevelt Holts, Bubba Brown, Mott Willis, Houston Stackhouse, Isaac Youngblood, Arzo Youngblood, and Boogie Bill Webb. In this lesson Evans explains the guitar style of Tommy Johnson, with its relatively simple fingering positions but complex rhythms, interpreting the songs as he learned them from Johnson’s disciples. The selections are performed in two keys of standard tuning (E and A), dropped D tuning, and Spanish (open G) tuning.

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. In addition the original 1928 recordings of the songs covered are included

Tunes include: Big Road Blues, Canned Heat Blues, Maggie Campbell Blues, Bye Bye Blues, Lonesome Home Blues, Slidin' Delta, Big Fat Mama Blues and a special bonus track of Prison Bound Blues never recorded by Johnson but performed by several of his disciples and learned from them by Evans.

118 minutes - Level 2/3 - Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: This is all about the Delta’s other iconic Johnson: the one who predated Robert as the Mississippi stud. The one who established his own stylistic school of guitar around Jackson by offering a more dashing, pinpoint, almost swinging alternative to the volcanic coarseness of Charley Patton or Son House. The one whose enduring shellac records, squeezed from the gap of 1928-1930, continue signing up fans beyond Howlin’ Wolf, Canned Heat and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The one fabled to have made a devil of a trade, down at the crossroads, for such supreme fretsmanship. Yes, the one and only Tommy Johnson.

Included within that fan club is professor David Evans, the leading living expert on all things Tommy Johnson. In the 1960s, Evans started making his famed rounds to Mississippi shotgun shacks, absorbing all he could about the bluesman (who died in 1956), right down to learning his guitar moves directly from those who learned directly from the master. That special relationship pays off with huge dividends here, including being privy to alternate song variations as well as the unrecorded “Prison Bound Blues.” In all, eight songs get dissected, including a classic shakedown (“Big Fat Mama Blues”), a train tune (“Slidin’ Delta”), a toxic ode to sipping Sterno (“Canned Heat Blues”) and, of course, the eternal gold standard (“Big Road Blues”). Transferred over to you are all the corresponding chords and licks, the thumb and three-finger strokes, the syncopated violence of snapping bass strings, and the clockwork precision in movement.

Yet fear not: No midnight deals need go down at the crossroads in order to play like Tommy Johnson. Just some time well spent with these two empowering hours. – Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag