Thankyou for the incredible response to this video! Checkout my Rockabilly Guitar Tips Playlist with transcriptions and lessons: kzfaq.info/sun/PLc6TciXWQ9R2oj2IsEWp1PYpWlK6ZTSRp

Along with leaning too much on setzer…you do not need a Gretsch and a Bassman to play rockabilly for gods sake

Great video as usual. Yeah, I had a buddy one time tell me, “You’re pretty rockabilly, but in my book, you’re not a real rockabilly unless you have a tattoo.“ I responded, “Gosh, I wonder if Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent or Eddie Cochran ever realized they weren’t real rockabillies… Do you think anyone ever told them?.” What’s funny is the guy wasn’t a rockabilly himself and was kind of a square. Some thing else I helpfully pointed out to him.

Valid points, beautifully explained…as always💪🏻

Setzer is the man . Reinvented the music scene twice and Higham is awesome … the old rockabilly from the 50s & 60s is what it is , nothing more , nothing less and will stand the test of time , but Setzer definitely deserves all the focus and attention he gets !

Very useful advise. Thanks for your videos!

Outstanding video….reminds me of the old days when I was a budding player in the 1960’s. You have got this down to a science….don’t stop!

Hell yesss! I don't drive a hot rod. I'm a road cyclist. Now I finally understand why I haven't got much success with rockabilly! Big thank you!!!!! 😉

Brilliant take. Rockabilly should certainly be more free range and less confined. You said it perfectly Fred

You're explanation of what to do with musical cliches is brilliant! Great playing!

Good tips. I’m listening to more horn players and trying to get those riffs on guitar.

A few years back I played a few shows with Robert Gordon filling in while Chris Spedding was doing another project. It was a really interesting experience. I was a fan of Gordons, and a big Gatton fan. I showed up to rehearsal and if I referenced Gatton or Link Ray or anything remotely Setzer he'd stop the song and shut it down. The only one of his guitarists he would let me reference was Spedding, which was interesting to me because to me he's the least Rockabilly and more a Rock guitarist playing rockabilly. Ended up having fun for a few shows. I'm not a Rockabilly guitarist at all. I was drawing on a lot of Chet Atkins and Charlie Christian, with some Spedding peppered in. It went over well. One of my favorite moments though was after a gig in Hamilton Ontario, a couple of fellas with the Hair and the tattoos came over to compliment my tone and ask what my rig was. I was using...an Ethos amp (SS pedal amp), a digital delay, and a tweed covered cab with 1x12 neo speaker. They looked like kids I just told Santa wasn't real. I had a nice gretsch at least. Lol.

Few people can replicate Cliff Gallup's sound. He played a Gretsch Duo Jet through a Standel amp, that's one thing. I've seen Scotty Moore play with Lee Rocker at the House of Blues in NY City, and his sound was more dialed down than most neo-rockabilly players today. Still, he captured Mystery Train quite nicely.

Yea, I figured I've been leaning too hard into Setzer. Right now I'm in the process of combining what I learned from Angus Young with the stuff I'm learning from Setzer. I learned most of my jazz skills from Setzer, so there is that.

Well, I almost have 1 done, and definitely nowhere near to 2...lol. That was awesome!

one of the coolest guitars in history. great tone as always

awesome video! Another way to avoid some of these mistakes is to explore complementary styles. Nick Curran was my gateway into T-Bone Walker/Jump Blues. Great compliments to any Rockabilly/Americana Guitarists repertoire

This is so awesome and I was laughing so hard at your top number one mistake. 😎👍🏼

Second best video you've ever done. No disrespect to Brian but I love the fact that the thumbnail on KZfaq shows no. 3.

@5:23 That Cliche fits into Swing and Blues language also. Blues Harp player Little Walter uses that same lick on "Juke" which also features a gradually added "Slap-Back Echo" effect added by the recording engineer Bill Putnam.

When i seen your title i was gettin ready to rip into you..its all about the feel...but i liked what you had to say..🎸

Nick of England just came in from the pub and completely agree with you Number 1

ha ha very good Adrian. All great points. 🙂

Some good things there. Always loved rockabilly and really only been to a few small events in France. All the older guys have leather jackets, jeans, biker boots tattoos, big greasy quiffs and big sideburns, which although rockabilly doesn't quite look 50's, more of a modern caricature. Some look good if they tone it down but some get the idea the more the better, then it looks ridiculous. Don't care for tattoos or the oversized sideburns that make 'em look like chimps, but each to his own I guess. Anyway nice video.

Great video mate, just subscribed

this is cool i don't do a lot of Rockabilly unless i do a Rockabilly/Surf or Rockabilly/punk your very good at what you do and getting it out and across to your audience

It’s a really cool style, Rock/country/blues all rolled into one. The algorithm must know my thoughts, I was recently just thinking about learning more about rockabilly

Actually major pentatonic is the most dominant original hillbilly rockabilly scale. Minor pentatonic is surf, western, and garage punk, exotica, western swing (harmonic minor), jig & reels, etc.

I love that Gibson. Great video. I miss playing.

Good advice; good fun.

Love it esp no 1...i drive a hyundai i35..( it is deisel tho)🤭😂 Great vid. Totally agree I love Setzer def my hero..but im also learning how to olay the originals ...but rhen unlearn them and develop my own style. Thanks to you, Dean Mcreadie, Dareell Higham, Randy Richter, and al the original Rockabilly guitarists on those amazing early records...im getting there paying my dues ,and ptacticing and playing live 🎸🎸😎🙏♥️

Hey Adrian, GREAT video 🎶🎸. So inspiring ! Makes me want to practice to get those sounds under my fingers. You mentioned videos about mixing minor and major pentatonics for those classic rockabilly/blues/jazzy licks. Where to find those links ? Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪 THANKS 👍

All makes sense especially no. 1.!

Great info! HILARIOUS #1 😅😅😅

Thanks ! I have to find your video about minor/major

A lot of people may not know this but Brian Setzer was also known to played a Fender Telecaster w/a B bender. I don't know how often or for how long but he didn't always play a Grestch. BTW it's good to see a rockabilly player playing a non-Grestch for once. Gibsons were pretty prominent in the rockabilly era, as well as Harmony and Fender Guitars.

What you say about Brian Setzer sums up what happened to rock guitar in general. The godfathers of rock guitar drew from everything but rock guitar since it didn't exist prior so literally everything they did was new and exciting. Reverb, echo and tremolo pre-date me but I'm old enough to remember when a fuzz box and wah pedal were revolutionary sounds. After a point, everything had been done and new players that only drew influence from the same handful of famous players just got diluted and boring. Van Halen and Yngwie were the ones that broke the mold. A comparison I can pinpoint about only copying one person was the old TV show Star Search. There was a guy that sounded vocally exactly like Kenny Loggins. He had a spectacular voice but all he sang were Kenny Loggins songs and this was when Kenny Loggins was still in his prime. We already had a Kenny Loggins and no need for clones at that time, especially one competing for a recording contract. The guy should have picked songs as far away from KL as he could get so people wouldn't be distracted always thinking, this guy sounds exactly like KL, and that was all that was ever said about his singing. Nobody heard "him" they only heard Kenny Logginsmania. Budding guitarists should draw upon diverse sources and styles like the first rockers did.

a nice change for beginners is over a 12 bar in A play the major pentatonic over the A and the A minor pentatonic over the D. Best way is to learn the notes on your guitar and play to the chords, learn so theory but the A to D change above is good

That was quality. Loved No. 1. 🤣

Great video, and thanks for uploading! I agreed with everything you said. I'm not a big fan of echo and reverb anyway; I can play rockabilly perfectly happily on an acoustic guitar if I can't plug in. I love Brian Setzer for the very reason you mention; he doesn't sound like anyone else. He's a consummate musician and I love listening to him, but I have no desire to try to sound or look like him. There's already a Brian Setzer out there...I want to do my own thing. Mistake 1 was hilarious! I can't tell tell you how many times I've heard that: "You play rockabilly??? You look like a damn hippie!" I even have weird taste in guitars. I love my Gretsch Country Gentleman, but my Gibson SG Special with two P-90s and a horseshoe Bigsby is my go-to guitar for rockabilly.

Please use a Bigsby and leave that neck tennon alone ! …. Lol lol …. Great vid Adrian .. thanks;)

Wow thanks you very much, I'll much more teach maj pentatonic

That opening improv was CLASS

I'm a Gretsch enthusiast and T.V. Jones classic pickups have timbre qualities only Gretsch has. You have to dig for them. Gretsch makes major chords sound very happy and minors sound like ghost murder.

Subscribed !

Good stuff

I don't have a hotrod either... :( Great video! Subscribed.

Nice one.

Totaly agree with you,subscribe🤠

Something almost everyone forgets, is that the "classic" players almost all used their amp's tremolo, along with the slap echo... You can clearly hear it from the likes of Grady Martin and Cliff Gallup, on the old records. I've figured out to run my trem at the higher speeds and lower intensities... And figured out how to get the delay to something like a one-millisecond slap, give or take. Something else that folks seem to misunderstand, is the fact that the ONLY reverb should only be coming from the ambient noise from the room and/or the delay device. The only reverb you're going to hear on the original Rockabilly recordings is coming from "the room", or MAYBE from plate reverb, like on a lot of the old Capital records...but most studios didn't have it. After all, Fender didn't invent his reverb until late LATE in '58 and didn't release it until '59. By then, "real" Rockabilly was pretty much a thing of the past.... The Teen Idol craze was happening. Something else I've taught myself to do, is to flatten out my sound with more bass and less treble coming through the amp. Not many of those old players sounded too crisp or "sparkly"... And NONE of them would have been caught dead letting anybody hear their fingers dragging on the strings... In fact, most of those guys used flatwounds specifically to keep the "quack" and "squack" noises to a minimum when sliding their fingers. Cheers, Gang!

I am working my way through a book called 100 Rockabilly Licks (by Fundamental Changes). I am also learning a few Chuck Berry songs, which I can't play at full speed yet - but I am getting there. Regarding learning licks from a book of licks. Should I just learn the licks and move on to the next lick (or next chapter in the book), or should I aim to memorise every lick the way I would when I learn full songs? This is partly a time management issue, because the more time I spend memorizing these licks the less time i have to learn full songs. When I learn a full song, I really learn it, deeply so that I can remember how to play it months later . But with technical pieces, I tend to learn then well enough to play it and then move on to the next short piece. But I am not sure if this is the right approach.

You are right....Charlie Feathers.

Spot on

A guy you never hear about is Marco DiMaggio he mixes it all up like setzer ,country blues swing, one of the few rockabilly guitarists that blow me away still, he does a buddy Holly cover of Everyday,you just go 7:45 t to listen .......

if you have a tattoo of a hot rod, is that enough?

all I want to do when someone hands me a guitar is to be able to play what you played at the beginning, or improvise something like that, where do I start. I already know how to play guitar but don't know how to move on the fretboard

I enjoyed that

Great video what type of Gibson is that? :-) Peace

Brian May's solo on "Pretty Little Thing Called Love". Need I say more?

How do you feel about rockabilly played on either Strat or Tele? (Through period-correct pickups, as much as possible.)

cool vid.

Haha…now off to the car dealer and tattoo parlor! Good stuff!

Click baity, but I like it-was totally fair. God bless ya man. Thanks for sharin’ -Ronnie

Danny built and drove hotrods, so there's that. The rockabilly guys copped a lot from Les Paul and Chet Atkins, lest we forget.

WOW, this guy with a British accent, coming over here telling me, a native of West Tennessee where Rockabilly was born, how to play it. Imagine that.

I've studied all those guys and ended up sounding like setzer ..it's a point A to point Z situation. Cool video though 👍😎

# 3: If you only copy one, make it Carl Perkins. (Just my personal opinion) But, yes, of course you're right, Adrian: explore the formative influences of your own formative influences. # 2: What was # 2 again - cliches? My observations here would blend in with # 1. I.e. put something of yourself into it rather than be a copy-paste museum exhibit. Again, just my opinion. There are dedicated museum exhibitionists who succeed in exactly what they set out to do. Good for them. If I might make so bold as to proffer another piece of advice to nascent guitarists (and that's where my development stands after ... forty-odd years on-and-off. Mainly off. Should have studied more cliches. Ha ha) it would be - don't be shy about inability. I've seen quite a few bands where the guitarist is on the lower rungs of wizadry and they hide in the mix out of shame. Balls to that. Whatever you can use after rehearsal, belt it out live with attitude. You'll improve with practice. My two bete boops with rockabilly combos are ubiquitous cover repertoires and 'BOOM-KSSHH' drummers. Find lyrical influence in a broad array of musical genres and bring it home to rockabilly. Controversial to some, no doubt. I lean on the side of formative, no-drum rockabilly for listening pleasure but I'd urge any rockabilly drummer in the direction of Elvis Presley's 'My Baby Left Me.' Or (and this will be controversial to students of the subject at hand) The Deltas' 1981 recording of 'Boogie Disease.' In DJ Fontana's case, we have sublime, understated syncopation with a jazz coolness. In Stevie Bongo's case, we have a single snare on an elephant rampage while the bass and guitar (John and Pat) rein in some semblance of keeping time. That effect, anyway. It's frantic. It's maybe a rated track but possibly underrated for rewriting the textbook. There's few things more grating to me than a square cat band teetering along to an oompah beat.

I got a hotrod and tattoos, still can't play as good as you.

What strings you running on that, flats? Rounds?

If you can't tell a joke without having to explain yourself, the joke probably isn't worth telling. Otherwise great advice. Thanks.

oo bad I don't speak English hihih there is no translation which delay pedal do you use? thank you renata

Other mistake is.... only play Blue Suede Shoes, all shows live

How you getting that tone out of that guitar?

What Gibson is he playing? Beautiful guitar.

I learn from Setzer add me...then it is me, my skill my bag of tricks gleaned from everywhere then most importantly swing the rhythm Wouldn't ever want to play to much like a anyone but sometimes you have to show where you've come from.

Can't believe nobody's mentioned Joe Maphis 😢

ALL these new minted "Rockabillies are the same. They have the pizza box.... But the box is empty and there's no pizza You have to go back to the original SOUTHERN players.....because REAL Rockabilly like all regional music Grows out of the Southern EXPERIANCE It's the joys, sorrows and just the feeling of being there. The presenter is right in telling people to listen to the INVENTORS of the music. Listen to thevfeeling they cause. Now compare that to the present crop of neo rocksbillies who are playing by rote and not the inner energy this wonderful, if done really right, music has. You want t he box, inside is an energy containment Encloseure and inside that is what you're really after...the unique inner energy of the music. The player and the whole band ond front man have to work as an integrated unit as a delivery device to provide the audience with...the inner energy. Hey what if a electric line looked great but delivered no power. Would you pay for that? Go to Memphis even today go to the Sun studio and numerous other locations in the area and listen to people who actuially produce the complete, properly done matrix of energy of this great unique American music.

Do you like Billy Strings ? different style I know but he mixes it up a bit ...

ähm...at 5.36...Don Heyne, Hine, H, ??? I can`t understand the name. but i like the lick - example Adrian played. So... if someone can tell me name or the bandname from the "Marvelous, Mysterious Mister H..." would be great. im from germany and im learning english just by listening to the music. and i guess Adrian is from England, wich is a little bit harder to understand than americans for me. g from g

hi. right man. find your own style and dont copy. and about tatts and all this...in my words... dont try to be someone else. dont be a hipster ! and yes, i got tattoos. but not this hipster grap. more jail tatts. im nearly 60 years. i get my first tattoo when i was 16 and in this time, we just get tattoos to show we are NOT a part of this society nothing else. we dont tought about their meanings. or better say, in the 80th we dont tought about anything we do. (oh, i better had 😉). in germany we got one sentence: the people who remember the 80s have not experienced it. so, all you young dudes...sometimes is better to reconcider/rethink(?) before handle. even if YOU forget... your karma dont. thx for your video g from germany ☠🤠

So visual clichés are good?

And yet another mistake is NOT playing Blue Suede Shoes enough. But we are all covered there, I'd bet.... D:-)

My abusive comment is that this is great content!! grrrr P.S. I have been making all 5 mistakes. Thank you. (14.9.22 - 5:04pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.)

Number 1 was the best!!!!! LMAO!

Add "no beard" to No. 1. 😃

Clearly you can't play rockabilly and have an Aussie accent too! Lol, just kidding. Glad I found your channel.

Too much Seltzer can give you gas guys..... But it's not bad with chocolate ice cream....

As far as I am concerned, I will never have enough Setzer! Lol!

I have no tats. Why? because Eddie, Gene, Buddy, Johnny Burnett, Cliff and Grady never had them. And if they did they never showed them. All the tattoos are a Punk crossover.

That's odd. Every rockabilly person I ever hear talk says "Brian Setzer isn't rockabilly." Who are these Setzer clones and where do I buy their albums?

yeah, rollin' up in a Camry ain't the move. Vans get a pass tho

I guess I suck because I only know 3 Stray Cats songs...

Mistake nr 6: not enough thirds... just my opinion, Scotty Moore plays a lot of thirds!

I'm a rockabilly player.

Mistake 6. Wearing a peaky blinders cap backwards.

I'm more a Scotty Moore man myself.

I don’t care how good you play, if you don’t have a pomp and a hot rod, you might as well just quit. 😅

Who wants to start a rockabilly band using only Schecters?? 😂

lmao 💀

1. rockabillies only use one ecco bounce in general, also only a real old ecco-machine is OK. 2. pentatonics just work 1 or 2 songs, otherwize the rockabilly-cops in the audience go away. 3. Setzer???? He does not play rockabilly, he trashes the music, real rockabillies don't ever listen to that garbage, only music from the 50s and just from some states. 4 standard riffs... just like the pentatonic it works for a couple of songs, the best thing is to copy note by note if you do a cover. 5. if you are going to make it you must be as it was, so i.e. no cell phones is allowed, they didn't exist in the 50s, neither computers so this is not valid to do being on the internet if you are a rockabillie...