Guitar Solo Transcription Challenge · B.B. King · The Thrill is Gone

I’m late!!

I’m late, for a very important date! My Sunday transcription was supposed to be put up yesterday, but due to a couple of factors it’s a little bit overdue… I was on holiday in Copenhagen last week, and had a much needed break. Then this weekend was super busy with wedding gigs. I did get to play some EuroVision songs though, which made everything better! If you don’t know why I’m transcribing guitar solos, check out this post. Copenhagen is an amazing place! Definitely recommended! Here is a glimpse of what I got up to:

Seriously though, on to the lesson… We’re looking at The Thrill Is Gone, a monster track of the blues giant B.B. King. We’re firmly in the realm of a 12 bar blues here, and in the key of B minor. It’s got that classic Lucille tone, and some great minor pentatonic licks! Plus, to make up for being late, I’ve transcribed the main solo AND the intro solo!

Intro Solo

The solo starts with a big ol’ root note, with B.B.’s signature vibrato. It’s fast and pretty narrow, but is very evenly executed. I’d recommend just spending a while trying to imitate this as precisely as you can. Nice vibrato will make your playing sound a whole lot more professional, so it’s a good idea to work on controlling it. Absorbing and mimicking the vibrato of great players will really help you to understand what a difference speed and depth makes to the feel of a note.

You can split this up into pretty much a lick per line, so I’d go through and work on each one individually before you knit them together. As I said before, listen out for the vibrato, and note that the last lick is overdubbed on a separate guitar track.

A sticky bit to watch out for is in bar 6. Really listen to how far he bends those notes to build that tension as the accompaniment fall back down to the root chord. It’s a tough one to get down, but very satisfying when you can pull it off.

My favourite part is in bars 7 & 8, where he repeats the phrase exactly, but shifts it forward by a quarter note. A perfect example of using rhythm to squeeze every last drop out of those familiar blues licks.

Main Solo

Here we go, the meat and two veg of the song! Again, we start with accenting the root note on beat one. Classic B.B. move! Note here how he shifts position and targets the root on both the E (7th fret) and B (12th fret) strings to facilitate his phrases. If you listen closely, you can hear the tone change depending on which string he’s on. The E string is slightly thinner sounding, and a bit more spanky. In bar 15 (i didn’t bother to restart the numbering…) he shifts up from fret seven to squeeze that 10th fret with a first finger bend so that he’s in the right place for the rest of the line. For bigger bend at the tenth fret, like in bar 21, he drops back down into position one of the minor pentatonic so that he can use his third finger for the extra strength.

The last point of note are the two high root notes in bar 20. This is probably the most common and well known idiosyncrasy of B.B. King’s playing, and a great one to steal if you want to sound like him!

Over and out.

I love this solo, because it sounds fantastic but is very accessible. All you need to know is your minor pentatonic shapes and you’re away! It’s helped me with my phrasing no end, and I’m definitely going to be stealing a lot of his ideas.

Thanks for checking out the transcription. I really hope it helps you! If it has, please let me know in the comments. Next week’s track is Talk To Your Daughter by the legend that is Robben Ford. Check back on Sunday 3rd February to see it. Fancy a bit more blues? Check out last week’s post!

Do you have any suggestions of guitar solos I should transcribe? Or would you like to book a lesson to learn how to play your favourite shredder’s guitar licks? Get in touch with me using the contact page and I’ll do my best to help wherever I can.

Big love, and awesome licks.

Ed