FEATURE } VIDEO MASTERCLASS

5 Texas Blues Licks

We invited the San Antonio-born blues master to record five of his favourite Texas blues licks. Prepare to turn up the heat, with Jon Bishop as your guide.

Chris Duarte playing his Xotic S-style in burgundy sparkle

INSTAR IMAGES LLC / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

In this feature we welcome Texas blues master Chris Duarte. Chris fronts his own power trio whose new album, Ain’t Giving Up, is out now on Provogue Records.

In his specially recorded video Chris demonstrates five licks at varying tempos, so no backing track is used (with the exception of lick 4, which is played to a click). To keep things simple we have kept things in 4/4 time signature with all the rhythms being approximate to what is implied. The groove here is shuffle style so the eighth notes maintain a swung feel. The licks are mostly based around B Minor Pentatonic scale (B-D-E-F#-A) with some colour tones added here and there. Example 4 is a turnaround idea in B Major so this one employs a BMajor key signature.