Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar – Handful of Riffs with Woody Mann (DVD with booklet)

In Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar – Handful of Riffs Woody Mann teaches five repertoire building songs arranged for the intermediate fingerstyle guitarist.  Inspired by Woody’s favorite traditional blues tunes, these easy to follow arrangements teach a variety of acoustic blues styles and sounds. Each song spotlights a specific technique for developing fingerpicking skills, rhythmic grooves and dynamics in your playing.  Woody illustrates the syncopated fingerpicking of Blind Blake, the single-line style riffs of Lonnie Johnson, the melodic playing in open G tuning of Memphis Minnie, and the unique riffs in standard tuning of Ramblin’ Thomas and Bo Carter.  Woody shows how the riffs and techniques can be applied in other songs and illustrates practical >ways to create variations within a tune.  In this fresh approach to teaching Woody Mann has taken the complex music of the early acoustic guitar innovators and has distilled the sounds into clearly written instrumentals that capture the essence and beauty of the music.

Songs include Along the Alley, Minnie’s Spanish Blues, Feeling Bad Blues,
New Old Devil, and Rambling Blues.

82 minutes.  Tab booklet included. 

Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar – Do That Guitar Rag with Woody Mann (DVD with booklet)

In Do That Guitar Rag, Woody Mann teaches the sounds and techniques of the classic ragtime blues guitar style. Inspired by the early masters such as Blind Blake, Big Bill Broonzy, Rev. Gary Davis, and Blind Boy Fuller, Woody has written original tunes that break down the complexities of the music into clear and playable instrumentals. Working in standard tuning, Woody illustrates syncopated picking techniques, chord embellishments, rhythmic bass lines, classic ragtime riffs and demonstrates how to attain the characteristic swinging sound of ragtime blues. Included is a Technique and Variations section that focuses in on how to play variations in the songs and discusses practical approaches to developing a solid overall picking technique. Do That Guitar Rag demystifies the playing of the great ragtime blues artists and reveals how to play the sounds and subtleties of this exciting acoustic blues guitar style.

Songs:  Midtown Fling, Late Morning Blues, Manhattan Rag, Country Buck, Mr. Blake’s Dance.

80 minutes.  Includes tab booklet. 

Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar – Early Roots with Woody Mann (DVD with booklet)

Art of Acoustic Blues Guitar – Early Roots teaches the song forms and techniques of early American folk and blues guitar styles.  Acclaimed blues performer and educator, Woody Mann, teaches five blues songs based on the playing of such originators as Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Scrapper Blackwell, and Tommy Johnson. Written for the near beginner to intermediate student, each song illustrates the techniques and approaches of these innovators in a clear and easy to understand arrangement of a classic theme in Open G, Open D, and standard tuning. Woody teaches techniques including rhythmic fingerpicking, left-hand damping, brushing and percussive right-hand techniques and syncopating a melody. Included is a Technique and Variations section where Woody further explores the subtleties of dynamics and phrasing and shows how to create variations within a tune.  Early Roots offers the student the tools needed to understand and play the music of the early masters – the roots of today’s acoustic fingerstyle guitar music.

Songs:  Delta Blues for Patton, Jackson Moan, Blue Daze, Shuffle Blues,
Bullfrog Groan.

80 minutes.  Includes tab booklet.

Let’s Get Silly, Children’s performance DVD, with Kurt Ghallager

Amazon.com customer review:

“My kids LOVe Kurt Gallagher. They’ve seen him perform live and he is a wonderful performer and this energy translates onto the video really well. He has original songs that my kids LOVE and also does some classics as well. This DVD gets them dancing and singing – definitely worth the price!”

Lisboa

Woody’s new book, published by Oak Publications, Music Sales, comes with a companion CD and features transcriptions to 18 of his solo guitar compositions. The titles are from his albums Stories, Stairwell Serenade, and Heading Uptown including: Heading East, Lisboa, And 3 Not 4, Top Hat, Cat Burglar, Gypsy Girl, Slow Motion, Mr. Guitar, A Little Love a Little Kiss, Blind Arthur’s Breakdown, and Heading Uptown.

Waltz for Joy, with Susanne Vogt CD

First Takes, The Sampler

Together in Las Vegas with John Cephas and Orville Johnson

Been Here And Gone – with Son House and Jo Ann Kelly

On separate occasions, when Woody Mann was just a teenager, he recorded a series of duets with Son House and JoAnn Kelly. These recordings have recently been remixed and released for the first time on “Been Here and Gone”. Mann’s distinctive guitar style is already evident and serves as a powerful accompaniment to the classic blues vocals of the legendary Son House, and British great Jo Ann Kelly in an intimate exchange between one guitarist and one vocalist. On the tracks with House, the veteran Mississippi bluesman sings with the intensity of his 1920′s recordings that recalls memories of long ago. The songs with Jo Ann Kelly might be thought of as “blues expansions”. The duo used traditional material as a springboard for their own improvising and original songs – and Kelly sings with the depth and creativity that has become the hallmark of her career. Throughout the album are seven short instrumentals recently written or arranged by Mann specifically for this CD. These impressionistic pieces interweave throughout the vocal tracks to create an overall unity of blues-based textures and moods. These, along with the earlier sessions, shows Woody’s ability to capture the essence and nuances of acoustic blues guitar playing at it’s finest. “Been Here And Gone” is a historically important recording that showcases two of the greatest vocalists ever to sing the blues. Their timeless artistry and powerful musical presence is as fresh today as it was then.

Heading Uptown

“For too long, Woody Mann has been one of America’s best kept secrets. If there was a category simply called Great Music, Woody’s playing would belong there.”

-JOHN FAHEY

Woody’s incredible fingerstyle technique is perhaps only outdone by his ability to compose and arrange. He eloquently sets perfectly syncopated bass lines against stunning harmonic and melodic phrasing. His roots start in the ragtime blues of Rev. Gary Davis (his first teacher), grow through classical and jazz and ultimately lead to a continually evolving style all his own.

Stories

“I’ve never heard a more creative, or a more musical sounding guitarist. He makes his brilliant technique a total tool of artisic expression, never indulging it for its own sake…You can hear classical, jazz, and blues approaches somehow converging into a single sparkling sound — a sound completely his own. Woody takes a fresh approach to his blues re-creations and his own compositions defy categories.”

-JOHN FAHEY

With stunning instrumentals and tasteful vocals Woody Mann mesmerizes. The music is at times subtle, at times explosive, and always right on the money. Compare Woody’s version of Blind Arthur’s Breakdown to the original (by Blind Blake) and you’ll see that if there’s ever been a guitarist who could beat Blake at his own game, it’s Woody.

“With impeccable tone, gutsy phrasing, beautiful harmonies, and cool dynamics, Mann is in a class by himself.”

-GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE

Stairwell Serenade

An all original solo acoustic instrumental recording. As usual Woody Mann presents proof that he is not only one of the best fingerstylists but also a great composer. On this cd Woody draws inspiration from several sources including Joseph Spence, Eddie Lang, Charlie Patton, Portuguese virtuso Carlos Paredes, Skip James, and former teachers Rev. Gary Davis and Lennie Tristano. The result is a masterpiece.

Get Together – with Bob Brozman

Woody and Bob both come from traditional blues backgrounds but have added many other influences to their unique styles. The original instrumentals on this recording draw from several genres of music including but not limited to Blues, Carribean, Calypso and Hawaiian music. The duo improvises on a variety of instruments.

“Together, Mann and Brozman have concocted the recipe for a music that is all their own, but seasoned by their separate backgrounds. Call it world music with Mississippi roots. Or maybe New Age with grit, it has the thunky dirve of 1920s bluesman Charley Patton, the haunting strains of a Gary Davis spiritual, a hint of Portuguese fado (via Mann’s 12 string Guitarra Portuguesa), oldtime boogie (powered by Brozman’s big baritone National), some saucy swing, gypsy waltz, exuberant jazz. Mix the ingredients together and the result is more than music with interesting flavoring. It is a feast.”

-Roger Wolmuth

When I’ve Got the Moon with Susanne Vogt on vocals

“Together, Vogt and Mann spin musical stories that take you on an exciting new journey.”

-Village Press, N.Y.

“Brilliant playing that demands to be heard.”

-Musician Magazine.

Woody accompanies Susanne’s brilliantly phrased vocals. This is a very unique and rare album. It’s the type of music we just don’t get enough of. Woody provides jazzy acoustic fingerstyle arrangements of both old standards and new compositions. Susanne speaks with a German accent but you’d never know it to hear her sing — she’s got a classic jazz-blues voice which works perfectly with Woody’s jazz-blues background. Though the feel is basically jazz, as always Woody transcends genre to the point that it becomes difficult to classify his playing beyond simply declaring it great music.