Customer Reviews

DVD-Rory Block Teaches the Guitar of Robert Johnson

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As always, Rory Block's teaching is clear and easy to follow. This Level 3 lesson is concerned with teaching riffs and slide techniques (in open G and open D tunings) that are used in the music of Robert Johnson. Of the three songs taught, only "If I Had Possession Over
Judgement Day" is taught at great length. The idea isn't so much to learn several songs by Robert Johnson, as it is to learn how Robert Johnson went about playing the guitar. The other two songs taught and performed are "Terraplane Blues" and "Preaching Blues". Rory also delves into how to approach the songs vocally. Well worth the money.

After playing acoustic and electric guitar for nearly 40 years and deciding to study and learn Mississippi Delta acoustic slide blues, I began searching for instructional videos. Rory Block knows her stuff and in my opinion, is able to effectively present many of the elements any student of this guitar style will need to achieve success. With that said, I find Ms. Block's style a bit more aggresive in certain respects and use the DVD as one piece of the learning process rather than the central part of it. I recommend the DVD highly as part of the process of learning slide guitar.

I really enjoyed both of theses dvds. I'm fairly new to playing slide but have played guitar for decades. I appreciated the way she works diligently to show exactly what she is doing and why. She doesn't always play exactly what Robert Johnson did and gives her reasons, showing what he actually did do as well. Ms. block certainly knows and loves the music of Robert Johnson and that makes a huge difference.

Rory Block is a goddess. I love the blues, all of it, Chicago, country, Delta, whatever. Rory Block is the blues. It is deep in her soul. It is what makes her get up in the morning. It is her breath, her blood, her bones. She is beautiful to watch, because she is in love. She is in love with the blues. She's a freakin' awesome player. She's got Soul. She knows Robert Johnson. Her lessons are clear, logical, simple, practical and cool as hell. I always dug Robert Johnson's playing but had NO idea how I could ever approach it as a slide player. It was just utterly intimidating. Rory, being brilliant, in a Zen kind of way, breaks it down, step by step, as any good music teacher would, so that even a dunderhead like me can work it out. And it's the style, the sound, the vibe, the UGH! UGH! UGH! that James Brown has that she conveys in her approach to getting together some chops that Robert Johnson and his peers developed and blessed the century with. She's gorgous, wonderful, humble, real, cool, talented (WAY!), devoted and totally comforting as a teacher. I tend to hate music teachers, but I LOVE Rory Block. You will too. Check out her web site too, she has a discography to die for. John Wilder