D'Addario Summer Six Pack

Welcome! Take a seat and relax. We're about to crack open the D'Addario Summer Six Pack. Our good friend Michael Ross, curator of www.guitarmoderne.com, helped us pick out a few ice cold tunes to share with you. We'll post a new song to the six pack each day so make sure you check back tomorrow.

Get those speakers ready because for this six pack we're Droning the Blues!

The rock and roll revolution was born as a mashup of the blues, jump swing, and country music, as played by young white American musicians in the 1950s. As rock and roll gradually became just “rock” the swing and twang diminished and the blues influence became ascendant.

When we think of the blues we normally imagine a twelve-bar three-chord progression. But there is a trend in modern rock toward music based on a more primitive form of the blues: the one chord drone.

White Stripes

Jack White’s “Rag and Bone” has the occasional extra chord thrown in but is far from a classic twelve-bar progression. It is rather based on a single repetitive riff and a hopped up version of the boogie feel.

John Lee Hooker

Here the boogie man himself plays “Boom Boom,” demonstrating that three chords can be two too many.

Black Keys

This Akron, Ohio bred duo makes no bones about being influenced by the droning, Mississippi juke joint blues of people like Junior Kimbrough. Here they cover his tune, “Everywhere I Go.”

Check back tomorrow for the next ice cold tune in the D'Addario Summer Six Pack!