One of the most iconic and recognizable blues guitar solo on the planet is the first 12 bars of BB King’s masterpiece, “The Thrill Is Gone.

Now, I’m no copyright lawyer, but it seems that the folks at the YouTube have worked out some sort of arrangement with the music publishers…

I see an awful lot of stuff from “real songs” and they don’t get shut down, so I’m gonna give it a try.

Unfortunately, what I can’t do is post the TAB, so I tried to go nice and slow so you can follow me. (That’s a whole other set of lawyers.)

Hope you dig it!


    19 replies to "BB King Thrill Is Gone Intro Solo"

    • Rodney

      Great solo Griff, very tasty and smooth

    • ian richardson

      The copyright thing has puzzled me for some time. Some channels get hit for just playing part of a song.
      Yet others do the whole song or solo with no issues.

    • Ted Alexander

      There is a complete lesson on this with tab in the original Blues Guitar Unleashed 1.0 course. Lessons eleven and twenty (tab). Enjoy!

    • Rick Bobick

      Hi Griff: Long time fan of you and your on line lessons. Wonder if you can do a few videos on “Picking”? I for one never mastered the ability of up and down picking between strings. Any lessons on “up picking” and how to improve the speed would be most helpful.
      Rick

      • Bill Storey

        Rick,
        Griff has talked about this on a few occasions. There are essentially two predominant approaches: 1) alternating picking and 2) “sweep” picking.

        Griff emphasizes that neither of them is THE WAY IT MUST BE DONE! It boils done to personal preference.
        Griff openly admits he tried for a long time to master alternating picking but it just does not work for him.

        The difference tween the two is:
        Alternating picking means that if your last stroke was a down stroke, the next stroke will be an up stroke. If your last stroke was an up stroke, your next stroke will be a down stroke regardless if you are changing strings or not.

        Sweep picking means that if you are changing strings (let’s say you just used a down stroke on the 3rd string and are moving to the second string), the next stroke will be another down stroke which keeps the hand moving in the same direction.

        I personally learned alternating picking early in my guitar journey and find sweep picking to be awkward, but again it is a matter of what works for you.

        When I was learning alternating picking, I would play a chromatic scale in 1st position from starting on the 6th string open and ending on the 1st string at the 4th fret. At first I would slowly play each note twice just to get the feel of alternating every time. Then when that was comfortable, I started playing each note once and move to the next note.

        If done correctly, when you play the G# on the 6th string, your last stroke will have been a down stroke. The next stroke will be an upstroke on the open A string. Continue slowly all the way up to the G# on the first string, then revers the scale and come back down to the open 6th string.

        Tedious? Yes. Does it work? It did for me.

        I hope this was useful for you.

        • Art Martinez

          Very well said/explained 👍🏼

    • Bill

      Griff,

      I have tried for a long time to count out loud and play, Just cannot get it done.

      My playing suffers because of this. Is there any fix for me?

    • tony

      Ah ha moment didn`t Steve T. do a lesson called a BB KIng inspired lic . I know he did and it is slightly different and not complete . Your former teacher. I heard if you ask nicely for permission you can use or play a tune but can`t do it exactly. It`s what a friend said. Of course because this is a private lesson and not done exactly the way the man did it and he did not do it the same I think lawyers will not come knocking . Just keep rockin da blues . My neck is red and my grass is blue how do you do. You know where that came from don`t you.

    • Bruce

      I stood at BB’s feet while he played this on stage in 69. I don’t remember how he played this but I do remember that after his set I got to shake his hand and I asked him about that “crazy vibrato” and his wild bends. He told me “Man if you’re playing 10’s you’re workin way to hard. “I use 8’s.” Elvin Bishop used 8’s too.

      • Paul Blaesing

        Thanks for that info on BB’s string gauges.

    • zack Guitarman

      Thanks Griff great stuff from Australia

    • Nick

      BB never played the same way twice. Play it in any key you want.

      • PAUL

        i found the whole lyrics, chords and tabs. just need to know which web site has free downloads, or all the music. they do, cut out some things maybe for copy rite reasons.

    • DaveyJoe

      Hey Griff, great work! And then we can solo later in the song with the lesson in BGU, right? I think it’s lesson 11?
      8/1/19

    • jack

      Great lesson, thanks!

    • anthony

      Hey great job Griff. I have seen this done differently . Maybe because of copy right issues . It was done in A a inspired BB King lic maybe . One of my guitar buddies who plays very well looked at it like I was doing it wrong and said that cannot be right . I played this way which was wrong over a cord track recently and sounded funny . Now I can see the mistake and will do it as You have . A strat has a short neck which makes harder to bend . A Les Paul is 3/4 of a inch longer which makes easier to bend. Funny thing when BB did this back in the day He said He used large strings and was hard to bend . So pour a bit of sugar on it which BB was known for . Thank You very much on doing this one. Its a favorite of mine.

      • Gery

        Anthony, You have it completely backward. The Gibson neck is slightly shorter making bends a tiny bit easier. The Fender Strat or Tele neck is longer.

        • Barry

          Yup… Most Gibson necks are 24 3/4″ scale, most Fenders are 25 1/2″.

    • Dave

      cartgate15@att.net
      Great lesson,this is one the best blues ever,thanks for spelling it out

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