Scott Ainslie is an expert on the guitar style of Delta Blues guitar great Robert Johnson. Throughout the DVD Ainslie teaches the learner about different guitar tunings and picking patterns that are popular in Robert Johnson’s songs. When Ainslie presents a song he presents it with the opening riffs, into the verses and chorus. Lastly he puts all the riffs together to present to the whole song pattern together with vocals.
The DVD comes with a booklet with music notation and tablature. It is a small booklet that presents tabs of riffs but not the complete song. One of the drawbacks of this DVD set is the linkage between the DVD and booklet. At no time does Ainslie refer to the booklet. A simple “this is riff #22 in the enclosed booklet” would have been helpful to the learner. I found myself getting lost in the booklet when Ainslie was playing “Walking Blues.”
Another drawback is that guitar riffs are presented both in the booklet and DVD from Honey Boy Edwards and Lonnie Johnson. While these riffs are very interesting and fit very well in the Delta Blues genre, they were not the intent of the DVD. The objective of the DVD is to teach the guitar styles of Robert Johnson, not other delta blues players playing Robert Johnson.
The songs that Ainslie covers are:
Kind Hearted Woman Blues
Sweet Home Chicago
Drunken Hearted Man
Ramblin on My Mind
Walkin Blues
Come on in my Kitchen
Cross Roads Blues
The DVD is slightly over an hour long. It contains bonus tracks on guitar techniques, practice tips and jam-along songs. The DVD could have been much longer and spent more time on many of the other songs. I had to substitute this DVD set with other books about Robert Johnson in order to get lyrics and complete guitar tabs.
Scott Ainslie presents the guitar riffs of Robert Johnson strongly. He is a very accomplished musician and an expert on Robert Johnson. His vocals on the DVD are very bluesy and do Robert Johnson justice. However, there needed to be more information on the Johnson in this DVD. There should have been a full size play book that accompanied the DVD with lyrics, complete tabs and discography.