HOMESPUN
Taught By Catfish Keith.
Level 4
80-minute DVD or VHS, includes music and tab
"One of the finest acoustic bluesmen in America.... This man is flat-out
spectacular!"- Big City Blues Singer, songwriter and guitarist Catfish Keith
has established himself as one of the most exciting country blues performers
on the scene today. His innovative style of foot-stomping, deep Delta blues and
American roots music has had audiences spellbound the world over.
On this outstanding lesson, Catfish teaches his trademark arrangements of seven traditional country blues songs. He starts his lesson with Jessie Mae Hemphill’s "Eagle Bird," a hypnotic one-chord song in the Mississippi hill style, similar to songs by Mississippi Fred McDowell, Junior Kimbrough and other masters from that region. Catfish says "it’s a bone-simple song," but by using his trademark techniques he transforms it into a powerful statement. As in all of the examples taught on this video, Catfish first plays the tune, then slows it down to highlight how he achieves his dynamic effects.
His powerful fingerpicking style features heavy vibrato, powerful bends, "artificial" or "harp" harmonics, bottleneck slide and plenty of funky attitude. "Why Don’t You Take Mr. Catfish’s Advice?" is another one-chord song, this time in the Key of A. Insistent rhythms influenced by Mance Lipscomb and John Lee Hooker combine a damped, steady one-note bass with a bass riff that’s echoed in harmonics, along with a "skanky pinch harmonic" that adds to your pallet of sounds.
The power of this style is in the hard-edged feel that Catfish gets by improvising a variety of sounds around one chord. "You don’t need a pile of chords," he says, "just one or two good ones." Based on a piece by the Rev. Robert Wilkins, "Police and a Sergeant" uses the alternating thumb style with syncopation and improvisations in the key of C. Lil Green’s "Knockin’ Myself Out Gradually by Degrees" features a double-time section, a Lonnie Johnson-style solo in harmonics with bass string snaps and a "sweep harmonic" chord wipe.
Moving to the Caribbean style inspired by the great Joseph Spence ("one of my favorite guitarists of all time"), Catfish teaches his dropped-D arrangement of the calypso "Brown Skin Girl." Here he uses musically simple ideas, but with the use of heavy syncopation, rhythmic variations and improvisation he takes the song into brand new territory. Changing to his steel-body National and using bottleneck and fingerpicks, Catfish teaches "Bye and Bye, I’m Going to See the King" by Blind Willie Johnson.
He uses open C tuning (CGCEGC) and talks about tone, vibrato, slide
technique and alternating bass picking. The video lesson ends with an amazing
performance of Bukka White’s powerful slide piece "Jitterbug Swing," including
fancy slapping/strumming moves as well as great show-stopping fingerpicking slide.
A two-time W.C. Handy Award nominee for Best Acoustic Blues
Album, Catfish has six number one Independent Radio Chart-topping albums to his
credit, and packs houses from coast-to-coast with his dynamic stage show. The
twenty-year veteran has toured the UK and Europe over a dozen times to wide acclaim,
headlining major music festivals, and appearing with legends John Lee Hooker,
Robert Cray, Koko Taylor, Taj Mahal, Leo Kottke, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Johnny
Shines and many, many others.