James Burton Signature Guitar by Hot Licks - Authentic Telecaster Style Electric Guitar for Country & Rock Music Performances

James Burton is one of the greatest guitar players, ever. A lot of players play differently, perhaps music you like better (Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, Lightening Hopkins, Albert King, Steve Cropper, Eric Clapton, to name a few) but none are technically better than Burton. This DVD is a great way to see what he is doing, and have him explain a lot of it to you, but playing music takes an ear and complicated muscle actions and nobody can tell you exactly how to do many of the "tricks" Burton shows. He can touch string and make it sing, and he knows chords, scales, and every note on the neck of a guitar. He takes basic triad, makes the 5 a 6, and then pushes his pinky down the B string until is a 7. The lesson is not long enough to explain all of what he knows, so you may not get everything the first time (or the third) you watch the lesson. One trick you can pick up right away, is that while he letting a last chord ring, he puts the index finger of his right (pick) hand on the low E string and slides it down, adding an interesting sound. You can learn that the first time you see it (he just does it, he does not tell you what note to start or stop on), but most of what he does takes weeks of practice.Burton is not a great teacher, but no great teacher can play like he does. The cost is about that of a single half hour lesson, but much more than twice as good. If you look at the video, watch his hands, and try to make the same sounds, you will get better. James did not have lessons this good and he figured it out, by picking some notes and then learning the ones that sound correct. Nothing he does can be learned in a day, a week, month or several months. He played for about 10 years before he sounded anything like this. You can't learn faster than he did, or you are a better guitar player (just kidding, no one is). A great video to see James in action, likely the best, is the Roy Orbison Black and White Night. http://www.amazon.com/Roy-Orbison-Black-White-Night/dp/B0000203YRThe Amazon description mentions "Tom Waits, and Jennifer Warnes" but does not list James Burton (one reviewer mentions the legendary "Steve Burton" - not to sure about that), but Burton is the star of the show, better (but with a smaller part) than Orbison and and Springsteen (who is surprisingly good).In this video, Burton shows a whole lot of stuff he wishes someone had shown him. You can't learn it in one day, but neither did he. If you practice, you will figure it out; if you don't, you won't.N.B. One reviewer mentioned that James is (like Chet Atkins) a finger picker. You can make much the same sound without finger picking, but you can not make the same sound, or be nearly so fast if you don't, and, as that reviewer pointed out, finger picking is another skill that takes a lot of practice (not days) to learn.An extra to learning some of his techniques is long bit on chord changes on the top four strings that he used on "Too Far Gone" with Emmylou Harris. Really pretty and he does most of the parts you would need to do the whole song. It is slow and it works beautifully, so speed is not the only trick in his bag.You can't get everything on one DVD, and if James wants to do another, I would like to see some the "stabs" or riffs that he and Steve Cropper use to back up singers without knocking them over. Both of those guys are real pros at filling holes with little bits that add a lot without being noticed. This DVD is mostly about the guitar solos, but that is actually what they do for 12 measures or so, what they are so great at is putting the backing up makes singers sound good, and that takes just as much skill, it is almost like they are composers, adding horns or percussion (or even silence) to make the song stronger.If you want to pick up some of the things Burton does, this is a great way to do so, and at much lower a cost than taking lessons to pick up the same things.