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I wanted to put together a tribute to Steve Cropper and that Stax / Memphis sound that came about in the late 50’s early 60’s, and so this is my attempt at a Steve Cropper style rhythm part. In a lot of styles of music, the rhythm guitar part can be overlooked or dismissed but that isn’t the case with the Memphis Soul sound - to me, the rhythm guitar defines the song. Steve Cropper was the guitar player for Booker T & the MG’s and that band became the house band for Stax Records and backed hundreds of artists including Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, and Wilson Picket to name a few. This style of rhythm playing is fun to listen to and twice and fun to play so hopefully this lesson will be helpful to those that are trying to figure it out.
Unfortunately due to the 10 minute time limit w/ YouTube I had to split this video into two parts. I’ve also included the MP3 jam tracks for you to download, one version with the rhythm and one without so that you can play along. This rhythm doesn’t come from any particular song, it’s just something I made up to demonstrate the style. Enjoy!
Steve Cropper / Stax Rhythm Part 1
Steve Cropper / Stax Rhythm Part 2
Below are links to the MP3 jam tracks that go with this lesson. The first link is the MP3 of just the bass and drums (minus the rhythm part), the second contains all 3 instruments. Use these to practice this rhythm with.
Download Stax blues guitar rhythm MP3 WITH the rhythm part
Download Stax blues guitar rhythm sample WITHOUT the rhythm part
This is really cool brian, I’ll have to play it for you next time I see you. Could you do more stuff on interesting rhythm parts? That would be really cool, thanks man.
Sure - I was actually thinking about putting together a whole mini series strictly on rhythm because that tends to be overlooked in a lot of online guitar instruction. There’s always plenty of focus on how to play this solo or that - but your typical blues rhythm lessons tend to be the standard 12 bar power chord thing. Sad.
I’m really enjoying your lessons and being able to put the podcasts on my ipod. Can you put the Steve Cropper lesson on iTunes? I would be very grateful. Thanks Brian!
@ Chotto - Glad you’re enjoying the guitar lesson podcasts - I just uploaded the Steve Cropper lesson for you (split into 2 parts though).
This lesson is fantastic! No one posts lessons like this focusing on rhythm, they mainly focus on lead. What’s lead though without rhythm? Love the lesson
Cool lesson, as are the rest also. As a ‘beginner’ guitar player it motivates me to get to the next level, without being freaked out by extreme finger movements (left and right hand)
is there a tab for it and cant down load
backing track to i tunes
@buzzing - there wasn’t a tab created for this lesson, only backing (jam) track. you can download it by right clicking and choosing to “save as” - I didn’t put these in a zip file as this was one of the first lessons I did.
@patchr - part 1 seems to play just fine (try it again) - if it just hangs up.. try moving the scrubber forward just a little and it should play just fine.
Nice Funky rhythm. Love it. I am really enjoying all the lessons. Interesting fingering for the D9. I think many players will barre the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, strings at the 5th fret with the third finger and not use the pinky.
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