Southern Rock Legends

Michael Johnson >> Southern Rock Legends >>

Lesson Subject: Southern Rock Legends II

What you learn: The Outlaws Style

Michael: Michael Johnson

Michael: Welcome class to the lesson on Southern Rock Legends. This lesson features the style of The Outlaws. The Outlaws were based out of Florida, also know as the Florida Guitar Army. Lead guitarist Hughie Thomasson later joined Lynyrd Skynyrd. The lesson sample starts in Em and will shift as we progress through the lesson.

Michael: Let's get started with the dual-guitar intro. Here's the chords for the rhythm:

Michael: Here's the jam track you will play over:

Michael: Basic chords with a straight forward strumming pattern. Here's the first harmony guitar part:

Michael: This harmony guitar uses the 4th box pattern of the E Minor Pentatonic scale.

Michael: Now in bar 4 notice the solo shifts to a D arpeggio, this happens when you shift to the D in the chord progression. Here's the 2nd harmony guitar part.

Michael: This harmony starts as a Minor 3rd of the Em, then shift to a lower harmony to the first part. Here's the jam track with both harmonies.

Michael: You can practice either part over the last jam track. Let's move to the next part, here's the rhythm track.

Michael: The rhythm track uses the E, C, D & A and plays a standard A5 and A6 blues rhythm pattern. Here's the jam track:

Michael: For this section you start in the same 4th box pattern of the E Minor Pentatonic you played earlier.

Michael: In bars 1 you play a descending run in the E Minor Pentatonic scale pattern. In bar 2 you ascend the scale pattern until you play a whole-step bend on the 10th fret/2nd string, then playing the 10th fret/1st string and back. Notice in bar 3 the one & half step bend on the 9th fret/3rd string. In bar 5 you have the unison bend where you play E on the 12th fret/1st string and then bend the 15th fret/2nd string up one whole-step to match the pitch of the 1st string. In bar 6 you resolve with playing in the octave of the box 1 of the E Minor Pentatonic.

Michael: Let's move to the next section. In this rhythm pattern you have a country sounding Em, C, D & A chord progression.

Michael: Notice some of the subtle hammer-ons between the chords. Here's the jam track.

Michael: Here's the next licks you can play over this jam track.

Michael: Now this lick uses a lot of the licks you learned earlier, notice in bar 5 you shift to playing octaves. This style of using octaves in a solo is very common in jazz, with artists like Wes Montgomery. The octaves have a fuller sound as you might notice. In bar 7 you have a triple-stop (harmonic interval) and then shifts to a double-stop in bar 8. Here's the rhythm for last part of the lesson.

Michael: Here are more country sounding chords using hammer-on notes in between each chord. You start with G, C add9, F6 9, and back to C add9. Here's the looping jam track for this section.

Michael: The ending chords for the jam track are D and C add9. Here's some licks you can play over this section.

Michael: You use the G Major Pentatonic scale pattern for this lick. You play a nice descending run in bar 3, where you include a Bb note to give more of a country-blues flavor.

Michael: Well it's time to go, I was great seeing you all and see you next lesson!

bart: thanks

jwells: Thanks ........

Michael: bye!

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