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Gregor Hilden Plays the YouTube Blues

Gregor Hilden is one of those Bluesman who — once you hear a single chord he plays — forever owns your sense of what’s good and your definition of what makes The Blues intrinsically real and beautifully human.  I’ve never met Greg proper, but I feel as if I’ve known him forever — merely because I drink in his daily GregsGuitars videos on YouTube.  Four days ago, I couldn’t bear my secret delight in his talent any longer, and I posted my very first comment on a video in my long history of using YouTube:

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The Madding End of Mad Mike Bloomfield

One of the greatest Blues guitarists to ever live — and die much too young — was Mike Bloomfield.  He was born into a wealthy, North Side Chicago family and grew up a “Good Jewish Boy” — until he hit the age of 14 and discovered the guitar and Southside Chicago Blues.

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The Perfect Blues Guitar Rig

We’re always searching for The Best, The Ultimate — The Perfect Blues Guitar Rig — and today, I’m going to share with you the center, and the chained core, of my most golden Blues playing experience.  It all starts and ends with wood: I’m currently loving on my mahogany Les Paul.

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The Birth of The Birth of the Blues in Performance

In my article — American Folklore and the Blues Black Cat Bone — we discussed the song “The Birth of the Blues” in the comments stream.  Today, as an important follow-up to that conversation, I want to take you a little deeper into the birth of “The Birth of the Blues” in performance because it is an interesting watershed song.

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Honoring the Born-On Strings Gauge

If you’ve been following this Boles Blues blog for any length of time, you’ve seen me do many guitar strings reviews with varying gauges and technologies.  In my article — Why Can’t You Pick a Strings Gauge? — I endeavored to explain the madness of setting up my guitars with different strings sets.

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Stuff You Need from Stew-Mac

If you have more than one guitar, you will, one day, need some basic tools to maintain your stringed instrument.  In the Guitar universe, there is one granddaddy supplier of tools and other neat stuffs — and thy name is “Stew-Mac” — or “Stewart-MacDonald” if you want to be more formal.  I purchased all these tools on my own, with my own money.  Stew-Mac are not even aware this review is being written.

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The D'Addario EXL115 Strings Review

After throwing on a set of Gretsch 11-49 strings on my Gretsch G5120, I decided to get my hands on some D’Addario EXL 115 strings for “Blues/Jazz Rock” and at .011, .014, .018, .028, .038 and .049 they’re quite a hefty string gauge and harder to bend than the Super Slinky set o’ nines I’ve been using from Ernie Ball.  I bought an EXL115 tenner pack because you get such a greater value buying in bulk and the price drops to around $3.00USD a set.

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