West Coast Guitar Blues
Located in 1 route
West Coast Guitar Blues centers clean, jazzy electric guitar with horn-like single-note lines, sliding ninth chords, relaxed swing feel, and precise bends. It is less overdriven than blues rock and more harmonically urbane than many Chicago styles, with the guitar often phrasing like a saxophone in a small jazz-blues band.
History
T-Bone Walker's California recordings created the template for modern electric blues guitar: amplified single-note solos, elegant chord substitutions, and a showman's melodic clarity. Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulson, Gatemouth Brown's West Coast-related influence, Saunders King, Hollywood Fats, Junior Watson, and Kid Ramos carried the style into R&B, swing revival, and modern club blues. West Coast Guitar Blues shaped B.B. King, Chuck Berry, blues rock guitarists, jump-blues revivalists, and contemporary players who favor tone, timing, and chord sense over sheer volume.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Jas Obrecht, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar
- Charles Keil, Urban Blues
- AllMusic
- Guitar Player interviews and archives