TG takes you inside the playing style of the guitarist whose musical rediscovery in the early 90s changed blues forever

Gary Moore’s era-defining 1990 album Still Got The Blues sends ripples through the guitar world to this day, as a new generation of guitarists continue to deliver the fire and passion of blues to a modern audience. Joe Bonamassa is the de facto heir to Moore’s virtuoso blues throne, and Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, Kris Barras and Laurence Jones all cite his influence, but we’d argue that any guitarist playing uptempo blues today owes a debt to Gary Moore. Period. Here, in our lesson, we’ll take you through some essential elements of Gary’s lead style post-1990 – his blues period. We’ll take a look at key techniques and the typical phrasing traits you need to know. If there’s a secret (and it’s not much of a secret if we’re honest), it’s Gary’s awesome playing speed and supreme timing. That means your fast licks need to be clean! Pentatonic scales are at the heart of Gary’s lead style, and, though easy to get started with, these shapes can be tough to deliver at speed. Your mission is to strike that seemingly impossible balance of speed and feel...