Books have been written about Bix Beiderbecke, movies have been made. His incandescent talent, meteoric rise and tragic death at 28: this is the stuff of myth and legend. We are fortunate that we have quite a few incomparable recordings. Although it is said that they only capture a shadow of Bix’s sound, you can hear right away what the fuss was all about. As Ernie Hawkins attempted to do with some Louis Armstrong songs in an earlier DVD set, (Louis and Bix, it is said, had opportunities to play together, and greatly admired each other), here he is playing and teaching some favorite Bix songs on guitar. Once again, the extraordinary fingerpicking style developed by Rev Gary Davis shines through, making this approach to the jazz of the 1920‘s possible. These songs may be challenging, but they are fun and rewarding to learn and play. Hopefully, learning this style via these songs will open the student to new possibilities.

This lesson is over 2 hours. The arrangements are for the intermediate to advance players. They are multi-section compositions with lots of fingerpicking challenges. But all your hard work will be very worthwhile as these tunes are some of the greatest in the early jazz repertoire. Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD.

Titles include: Susie (of the Islands), I’m Coming Virginia, I Need Some Pettin’ and Stardust

A record by Big Bill Broonzy was the first Blues record I purchased. I loved his voice, his guitar playing and his handsome face...
He was my first Blues crush - Pete Townsend

Big Bill Broonzy became like a role model for me, in terms of how to play acoustic guitar. - Eric Clapton

Without this man, I don't think I would have done what I did. - Ray Davies

Big Bill Broonzy (June 26, 1903-August 15, 1958) was an incredible American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the 1930s and 1940s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences. In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. He was one of the first bluesman to tour in Europe and his performances and records influenced folk guitars from John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Stefan Grossman and Davey Graham to rock guitarists as Eric Clapton (who recorded several Big Bill tunes on his Unplugged CD) to Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones who said: "Big Bills Guitar Shuffle was one of the first tracks I learnt to play, but even to this day I can't play it exactly right."

In this double DVD lesson of over 4 hours of instruction, Ernie Hawkins teaches ten of Big Bill's greatest guitar solos and arrangements. Each tune is taught phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you ca carefully study what each hand is doing. Detailed tab/music booklets are included as PDF files on both DVDs. Also included is rare footage of Big Bill as well as bonus audio tracks of Big Bill's recordings of the tunes on this lesson.

Titles include: Gutar Shuffle, Oh Yes, Glory of Love, Banker's Blues, Stovepipe Stomp, Shuffle Rag, St. Louis Blues, Shelby County Blues, Slow Blues, Bill Bailey

In this lesson Ernie Hawkins teaches three Rev. Davis arrangements that will challenge your fingers. Rev. Gary Davis's tour de force in concert was his Soldiers March. This is a multipart instrumental played in the Key of F and C and is a showcase in demonstrating the genius of Rev. Davis's playing and arranging skills. Few country blues guitarists played in the Key of F but Rev. Davis explored this key with religious as well as old pop standards. Darktown Strutters Ball is a fascinating arrangement that captures the atmosphere of the 1920s. Rev. Davis use to tell his students that playing with a bottleneck was "cheating". Yet his Whistlin' Blues uses this technique combined with an Open D6 tuning to create an unusual boogie piano sound.

Ernie Hawkins teaches each tune phrase by phrase and carefully shows you the right hand picking as well as the left hand fingerings that were unique to Rev. Davis's approach. You will be able to easily follow the instruction with the tab/music booklet. Also featured are split screen segments where each section is played slowly and you can study the movements of each hand. As a bonus we have included various audio performances of Rev. Davis playing each song.

Titles include: Soldiers March (United States March), Darktown Strutters Ball and Whistlin' Blues

In this second DVD lesson devoted to the guitar playing of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ernie Hawkins dives into Lightnin's early catalogue from the Aladdin and Gold Star record labels. There was an amazing variety to Lightnin's early work. Listening to his early recordings we hear an artist at his prime. He effortlessly employing widely different rhythms, keys and tunings. The deeper we listen to these songs, the deeper our insight into what a master of Texas blues Lightnin' Hopkins really was.

Lightnin's style itself came along at the perfect time: the advent of the electric guitar. His style, strong rhythms punctuated by his flowing but compact lead lines created a stinging and heart-tearing evocative sound. Lightnin's guitar style and technique worked great for both the acoustic or electrical guitars. The blues of Freddy King, Albert Collins, the Vaughn brothers, Billy Gibbons, testify to the power of this style. Lightnin' connects the generations of players, starting with Blind Lemon Jefferson, for whom he was lead-boy in the early 1920s. Standing tall at the center of the Texas Blues story is Lightnin’ Hopkins.

In this double DVD set, Ernie Hawkins covers songs in unusual keys such as: drop D (Sugar Mama), in drop D but played in the key of A (Santa Fe Blues), in G (Bad Luck and Trouble), as well as in the usual blues in A, Come Back Baby and the country gospel Needed Time in the key of E. As a bonus, Ernie teaches his version of Lightnin's Hideway, the Freddy King tune coming back home to Lightnin'.

Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. Detailed tab/music booklets are included as PDF files on
both DVDs.

REVIEW
Few players have steeped themselves in the styles of the great blues masters like Ernie Hawkins. Having lived with and studied the playing of the Reverend Gary Davis right out of high school, Hawkins is one of the U.S.’s leading practitioners of Davis’s much-emulated style. He has also put out DVD’s on Mance Lipscomb and Blind Willie McTell. And Davis has also plumbed the depths of another great blues player, Lightnin’ Hopkins, on "Deep Texas Blues." This 2-DVD set is a follow-up to his first volume on the style of Hopkins. Like all of the teaching DVD’s produced by Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, the audio fidelity is excellent, and the DVD’s give enough close up and split-screen views to give the learner lots of chances to see just how Hawkins manages to play in Hopkins’ style. Going green, the DVD’s have pdf files with tab/music booklets for adding learning. Hawkins is a warm and gracious teacher, and clearly walks the learner through the five songs studied on these two DVD’s. He brings out many of the peculiar elements of Hopkins’ songs. For example, he shows how Hopkins varies the use of bass in his songs depending on the tune. On "Come Back Baby," Hawkins shows how an initial run leads right into the bass note, and gives all kinds of variations on the scale shapes Hopkins uses. Like many blues players, Hopkins played the melody as he sang over it. Hawkins also shows how Hopkins most likely set the stage for many great electric blues players with his style (Hopkins played both acoustic and electric blues). Each DVD is filled with bonus files. The first has 3 audio files and 2 videos of Hopkins playing, while the second has 12 audio files and 2 more videos. If you love the blues and want to learn the power of Lightnin’ Hopkins and his Texas blues, there is no better place to start than this set.
© Kirk Albrecht Minor7th

This DVD lesson could be titled The Music of Louis Armstrong for Fingerpicking Guitar or Gary Davis Meets Louis Armstrong. Born in 1896, the brilliant Piedmont guitarist Gary Davis came of age in the teens and the twenties. He was in his prime during the Jazz Age and his playing shows it. His guitar style and techniques came out of the twenties. It enabled him to play like a band. His thumb playing the rhytmic sections of the band while his index finger soloed over this. Rev. Davis only used his thumb and index fingers to pick. When asked why he replied with a smile: “That’s all I need!” In Rev. Davis’s playing you can hear the drive of Louis Armstrong as well as Louis’s bugle call riffs.

Rev. Gary Davis's style is made to order to play Louis Armstong tunes on guitar. As I learned most of what I know and do on the guitar from Rev. Gary Davis, this is how I see it and how I have approached arranging the tunes on this DVD lesson. Once you find the right key on the guitar these early jazz masterpieces seem to fall right into place. Putting Cornet Chop Suey into the key of C, for instance, enables you to play the patented ‘Gary Davis Slow Drag G form C run' throughout as the statement of the initial melody.

This lesson is over 2 hours and forty minutes. The arrangements are for the intermediate to advance players. They are multi-section compositions with lots of fingerpicking challenges. But all your hard work will be very worthwhile as these tunes are some of the greatest in the early jazz repertoire. Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. Detailed tab/music booklets are included

Tunes include: Potato Head Blues, Basin Street Blues, Cornet Chop Suey, Weather Bird and It’s A Wonderful World.

Volume One:
Buck Dance, Devil's Dream and Sally Where'd You Get Your
Liquor From (76 minutes)

Volume Two:
Twelve Sticks, Fast Fox Trot and St. Louis Tickle (102 minutes)

Volume One:
Slow Drag (Cincinnati Flow Rag)

(77 minutes)

Volume Two:
C Rag
Don’t Let My Baby Catch You Here
Make Believe Stunt (Maple Leaf Rag)

(96 minutes)

Rev. Davis approached playing the blues in several different styles. Each had unique characteristics and ranged from what he called “old fashion picking” to complex playing that explored and extended the blues tradition on the fingerboard.

Each arrangement is broken down phrase by phrase and then played slowly on a split screen. You can easily follow the playing with the tab/music booklet. As a bonus we have included various audio performances of Rev. Davis playing each song.

Acoustic Guitar July 2008
If you wish to learn the guitar style of a great bluesman like Rev. Gary Davis, you can hardly do better than go to one of his disciples. At the age of 18 Ernie Hawkins traveled from his native Pittsburgh to New York city to study with Davis. In this double-disc DVD, Hawkins walks us through some of the Reverend's best-known songs, such as "Cocaine Blues", "Candyman", and "Hesitation Blues". Hawkins is an expert at breaking down the Reverend's style, explaining the nuances of Davis' thumb and index finger method of playing. He begins with the simple two-chord song "Spoonful" and progresses through more difficult tunes such as the aforementioned "Hesitation Blues" and "Can't be Satisfied". Along the way we learn some of Davis' unique chord voicings and innovative single-string runs and double-stops. Hawkins does an admirable job of providing insight into the playing of one of the most innovative acoustic blues players, a man who produced some of the most beautiful gospel and guitar-based blues. The DVD also includes audio guitar files of the Reverend's original performances, as well as a booklet with tab and musical notation.

Mike Chambers Alpharetta GA
I just had to thank you for the wonderful work you are doing teaching the guitar of Reverend Davis. I am bass-string deep in learning the songs on your Blues Guitar DVD set. I would not have believed it possible to outdo the achievement of The Gospel Guitar lessons, but you may have done so.

Just the stories alone of your time with the Reverend are worth the price. I have longed loved the classics here--Cocaine Blues, Dehlia, Candyman. I had worked out versions of those songs; but of course, they weren't quite accurate. Your tablature and patient teaching have shown me the way. The addition of songs I had never heard, like Penitentiary Blues and Florida Blues, makes this DVD set a treasure for all of us that love and respect the artistry of Reverend Davis. Thank you so much for doing this important work.

Volume One:
Spoonful
Cocaine Blues
Delia
Baby Let Me Lay it on You
Candyman
( 88 minutes)

Volume Two:
Hesitation Blues
Penitentiary Blues
Florida Blues
Can't Be Satisfied
Hard Waking Blues

Guitar Artistry of
Ernie Hawkins
Blues & Ragtime

In this DVD Ernie talks about his influences and performs a wide range of blues, ragtime and gospel tunes.
Youtube - video clip

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