Texas Flood Bass Lesson and Transcription

[greghagger]

Yet again Tommy Shannon is getting the business done in the studio version of Texas Flood.

 

This whole album was recorded in three days which is hard to believe with albums taking months, even years to get finished nowadays! Without any overdubs, the album has a really nice live feel to it. 

 

The song Texas Flood is in 12/8 time and if you want to become an accomplished Blues bass player then you need to be comfortable playing in the 12/8 Blues feel as it's often used for slow Blues tunes. I spend time at the beginning of this YouTube lesson explaining exactly how 12/8 time works so definitely check out the lesson if you need help with this.

 

There are particular lines that just 'work' when playing in this style of Blues and Tommy Shannon is a great player to learn these from. He really lays the groove down but also has an intuitive sense of when to 'let rip' and add some variety to his lines.

 

In the lesson I show you how to play the first chorus of Texas Flood and then break down the rest of the bass line and talk through some of the variations Tommy plays. 

 

You’ll find a full transcription of the bass line in Tab and standard notation under the video. 
 

https://youtu.be/qMcGhUysokM