Chords for Jon Gomm on the history of percussive guitar in Flamenco and Blues

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_ _ _ _ Now, people have been playing drums on the guitar since the guitar was invented.
It's a big wooden hollow box.
If you haven't hit it at some point to see what it sounds like, then you're clearly not
a very curious person.
In the earliest form of _ acoustic guitar playing in Europe, like what would be a modern kind
of guitar, is the stuff in Spain which became flamenco, [E] so kind of proto-flamenco.
In that style, somebody [Bb] might be playing some chords, _ _ [B] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [Ebm] _ _ [F] and then might open.
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these kind of dramatic flourishes are part of the rhythm guitarist's job in flamenco.
That's really, really old form of music.
_ _ In North America, I guess the earliest style of really what is anything like modern guitar
playing is really blues.
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In the blues style, again, people would play drums on the guitar to pound out rhythms for
people to dance to, because they couldn't always hear him playing anything except really
pounding out the rhythms.
That's where guys like Booker White, the root of that, comes from. _ _
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_ _ That aspect kind of got lost, because the most [Ab] famous, if anybody could name a Mississippi
Delta Blues guitar [E] player, it's Robert Johnson.
He was like this [N] kind of tinkly, intricate finger-style wizard, but he was quite unique
at the time.
Most guitarists weren't like that.
They were physical pounding at the guitar, but he was really kind of dainty almost.
I think that's why it got lost, because all the people who were influenced by that style
of guitar tends to be the Robert Johnson side.
_ I'm going to show you that blues style right now.
I'm going to use this device, which is a slide, which is used a lot in blues guitar.
I don't really play slides, [Bb] _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bb] but_
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[Bb] _ _ _ _ [N] _ That's kind of the blues slide style.
_ Okay, so the first drum I'm going to show you is the kick drum sound.
So that's the low bass drum.
So _ _ _ _ _ _ that's the low bass drum sound. _
The second drum _ _ is the loudest and therefore most important drum, and that's the snare. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ I'm trying to put some kind of other percussion in now, like some _ _ Tom Tom type drums.
Let's see. _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ So it's sounding a little bit more like drums now, but it doesn't sound quite like a drum
kit, because there's one drum missing, [G] which is the hi-hat.
So I'll put that in, and then it's going to sound like a drum kit, I hope.
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_ _ [G] _ _ Okay, so that's my drums.
Now I can start to introduce [E] some other things.
So _ with the really low tunings that [G] I use, I can play my low strings of my guitar, and
it [E] sounds like a bass.
It's like a [Em] bass sound.
So I'll put that in. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ [G] Okay, so that's now my drums and my bass going.
[Ab] _ _ Okay, but if you might get back to my [G] blues guitar thing.
So now I need the blues guitar in there, and then we'll have the whole band, alright? _ _
Okay, so here we go.
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