"A 1992 red electric guitar with mahogany neck, maple top, and diamond shaped pearl inlay on the fingerboard. No serial number. Played by Slash this guitar while recording the track ""Loving the Alien."" on the Velvet Revolver recording the album ""Contraband."""
So-called "cowboy chords" have been fundamental to the guitar since its invention. In this lesson, we'll look at easy ways to spice up these everyday grips so they'll add interest to your playing, improve your rhythm, and liven up even the most predictable of progressions.
What is a Cowboy Chord?
Speculation abounds regarding the origin of the term "cowboy chord," but here's an explanation that makes sense to me: In many 1940s movies, such actor-musicians as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry portrayed cowboys who played guitar and sang. In these musical scenes, the actors strummed first-position, open-string chords and seldom strayed beyond the 3rd fret.
However they earned this nickname, cowboy chords remain essential to all guitarists—from beginners to pros. Unfortunately, many players rarely get past the most basic shapes shown in Ex. 1. That's a pity because by just moving a finger or two—or sometimes simply lifting a finger off the fretboard—you can add color, tension, movement, and zest to your playing. Let's make that happen now!
Cowboy Chords Ex. 1
Just Move a Finger
These days it seems like every other hit song features the prosaic I–VIm–IV–V progression. Now there's nothing wrong with the progression itself. In fact, the reason we hear it so frequently is because it sounds good, and it has been used masterfully by everyone from George Gershwin to the Rolling Stones and the Police. But the aforementioned songwriters knew that to make the everyday unique, you need to add some spice.
That's exactly what we've done in Ex. 2. This example demonstrates two basic concepts: The first is that you can add color to the most basic chords, in this case C–Am–F–G, by moving, removing, or adding a finger to each voicing. This second concept is particularly interesting because even though we keep moving the same notes on the 2nd string against the first three chords, the quality of these chords keeps changing. For example, when you let the 2nd string ring open on a C chord, it becomes a Cmaj7, but when you let the same string ring open on an Fmaj7 chord it becomes the much more sophisticated Fmaj7#4. Now that's spice.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 2
Ex. 3 uses the same progression (I–VIm–IV–V), this time in the key of G, but now all the movement happens on the 1st string. Once again, we find ourselves with some very elegant harmonies. The Gmaj7 in measure one is particularly noteworthy because it sounds quite mournful, as if longing for something. Lost love perhaps? Maybe that's why the Smiths, Jim Croce, and the Sundays have all used it to complement melancholy lyrics.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 3
Ex. 4 expands upon the "move a finger" idea by moving several fingers to create a melodic motif in the D and G chords. It also gives movement to the A7 chord by shifting shapes up and down the neck. We'll expand upon the latter idea in the next example.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 4
Spice Up Your Blues
Ex. 5 appears to be a common 12-bar blues, and form-wise this is true, but the uncommon movement we've applied to the E7 and A7 shapes adds considerable harmonic sophistication with very little effort.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 5
Going Outside the Key
Up to this point, all of the examples have been completely diatonic, meaning all the notes we've added to the basic triads have been in the same key as the chord progressions. But what happens if we add some notes that are not in the home key? Well, now things get really spicy, though no more difficult to perform. Ex. 6 is an ingenious example of how to add variation when you're stuck on one chord for more than a measure or two. Notice how tense the progression becomes when you play the Em#5 and yet completely relaxes when you conclude on the Em. This particular progression, both descending (as shown) and ascending (just play in reverse order) was used numerous times by the Beatles, most notably in "Eleanor Rigby," "Hey Bulldog," and "Savoy Truffle."
Cowboy Chords Ex. 6
Speaking of the Beatles, Ex. 7 is a progression they learned from "Don't Ever Change," written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and recorded by the post-Buddy Holly Crickets. Once again, the tension created by the D augmented chord resolves very nicely into the D6 on the way up, and into the D triad on the way down. By the way, if you just play the D to Daug over and over again, you'll find yourself playing the verse to Eddie Money's "Baby Hold On."
Cowboy Chords Ex. 7
Add Some Bass
So far, all our examples have focused on movement and color in the higher registers, but you can also add spice to the bass notes. Ex. 8 is a folk and folk/rock staple, used by everyone from Simon and Garfunkel to Led Zeppelin and, despite the obvious chord names that are written here, it's relatively complex harmonically. You see, in this folk context, it is best to name the chords using the bass-note slash, i.e., Am/G–Am/F#–Am/F. But in different contexts, particularly in jazz, those last two chords could be named F#m7(b5) and Fmaj7, suggesting that adding a bass note can radically alter—and enhance—the harmonic quality of any given chord.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 8
Ex. 8 featured a descending bass line, but in Ex. 9 we'll turn that around and have the bass ascend while we're playing an Em chord. Notice how we've included a non-diatonic note, Bb, at the end of the progression. This adds tension that's released by the final Em.
Cowboy Chords Ex. 9
Be Judicious
These exercises have been specifically designed to get you into the habit of adding variation to your everyday cowboy chords. They're also, as good exercises should be, rather formulaic. While you play through them, remember that when making up your own progressions, you don't need to add movement to every chord. Maybe you insert movement in the verse but not in the chorus, or vice versa. There's no need to overdo it: A little spice can go a long way toward making your songs and arrangements a lot more inventive.
A 21st-century bluesman raised in the heart of the Mississippi Delta carries with him both instant credibility and the burden of an illustrious history. Growing up in an environment so saturated with the imposing spirits of America’s musical past, a person might, you’d think, find it hard to pick up a guitar and even consider making a career with it. But Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, born 26 years ago in Clarksdale, Mississippi—the legendary stomping ground of Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker, memorably depicted this year in Ryan Coogler’s hit movie Sinners—doesn’t seem to have paid much mind to any of that. For him, the blues has simply always been a part of his everyday life.
“Muddy Waters and B.B. King were the first two bluesmen that I learned about at an early age, before I even got to proper schooling,” Ingram said in a recent Zoom interview. “My dad showed me a PBS documentary on Muddy Waters and he showed me B.B. King doing a cameo on an episode of Sanford & Son. I remember those two things very well. And not only that, I lived right next to a blues band. Being around them definitely made me want to do what I’m doing now.
”Getting from there to here—“here” being the position of critically lauded, internationally touring Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist—involved a mixture of raw talent, good genes (Kingfish comes from a musical family; the late great Black country star Charley Pride was his mother’s first cousin), and a supportive cultural infrastructure. Not long into his elementary school years, Ingram got involved in the music education program at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. Starting out on drums in his church group at age six, he switched to bass by 11 and guitar by 13.
“When I started learning about the blues, I wanted to get on guitar,” he recalls, “but I felt like my fingers were too big for the strings, so I moved to bass and that became my primary instrument. And when that phase went away, I switched to guitar. First I would do some of my bass fills and lines [on guitar], and next thing you know, my teachers at the museum taught me how to use the first two high strings, and once I started learning a couple of chords, I took it from there.”
Onstage, Kingfish says, “as far as soloing goes, it’s all improv.”
That he did. Within a couple of years, Ingram was gigging locally and, thanks in part to his Delta Blues Museum connections, gaining national notoriety. At 15, he performed with the museum’s band for Michelle Obama at the White House. The emotional authority of his guitar playing in particular astonished listeners. Veteran bluesman Eric Gales told Blues Rock Review that Kingfish was “killin’ from day one … It’s a beautiful thing to see such a vibrant, intense, very skilled artist.” (Gales and Ingram have since become close comrades, referring to each other as uncle and nephew.)
“Muddy Waters and B.B. King were the first two bluesmen that I learned about at an early age.”
Ingram’s superb 2019 debut albumKingfish, the recording of which was financed by no less an elder statesman than Buddy Guy, turned plenty of heads in the music world; its crunchy opening track, “Outside of This Town,” remains an excellent introduction to the Kingfish style. Its 2021 follow-up, 662, won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and 2023’s fiery Live in London consolidated his status as a major modern blues force. His latest collection, Hard Road, presents a markedly different picture, though. No longer a Clarksdale resident, Kingfish now makes his home in Los Angeles, where he moved three years ago. “Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Mississippi,” he acknowledges. “But out here in California I definitely have more resources, more opportunities, and more ways to work.”
That new reality is reflected in the songs on Hard Road, which were the product of collaboration with 11 songwriters and 12 musicians, recorded with three producers in 11 studios spread across two states—a level of ambition, and logistics, that dwarfs any of Ingram’s prior work. For five songs cut at various locations in Nashville, Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, George Thorogood, Susan Tedeschi), who’s been working with Ingram since the start of his recording career, took the reins. Patrick “Guitar Boy” Hayes (Usher, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole) helmed sessions for four songs in L.A., Hollywood, and Irvine, California, while up-and-comer Nick Goldston oversaw two songs in Santa Monica and Memphis.
As you’d expect, it took a while to put all this together. Ingram at first estimates a gestation period of three to four years, then reconsiders. “Probably even longer than that, because some of the songs that we used were from the 662 sessions,” he says. “But it was really when I came out here to L.A. and was working with Guitar Boy in the studio week after week when I wasn’t on the road that this project was born. I was a little scared, making a project with all these different genres. I didn’t want it to sound like a random jukebox thing, you know? I just wanted to do more music that showcased a lot of other things about my talent: the vocal range, the writing, stuff like that.”
“Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Mississippi. But out here in California I definitely have more resources, more opportunities, and more ways to work.”
Hard Road certainly achieves that goal. Riff-powered rock and luscious R&B coexist comfortably with more traditional-sounding electric and acoustic blues turns. “Nothin’ But Your Love,” for example, is an irresistible slow jam recalling Prince in his ’80s prime that keeps the focus squarely on Ingram’s rich baritone. “That was one of the songs we’d been sitting on since 2021,” Kingfish reveals. “A young man out of Nashville by the name of Dylan Altman came to us with it, then we added a verse and switched some things around. We recorded that in Memphis at Royal Studios, and for the solo I was using my Custom Shop Strat with just a little bit of gain on a [n Ibanez] Tube Screamer, going through a Sunn amp. I remember that session because I don’t play Strats that often, except in the studio—live it’s all [guitars with] humbuckers.”
As Ingram’s comment makes clear, HardRoad’s stylistic diversity doesn’t mean an absence of guitar solos. For further proof, check out his slippery-smooth funk excursions on “Bad Like Me” or his psychedelic scorcher on the downright Hendrix-ian “Crosses.” Moments like these also demonstrate Kingfish’s multidimensionality as a player. Sure, he can lean into a gut-punching bend with the best of them, but his ear for melody and sophisticated sense of harmony are what really set him apart.
Kingfish’s new album, Hard Road, is the first on his own label, Red Zero.
“The Covid era was a little good for me,” Ingram says, “because I was able to sit back and [wood]shed and learn more about music theory. I was always into it, but I just wasn’t figuring out a way to play it. I’m still learning, but now I definitely know the numbers, and I can explain a bit of what I play. Shout out to a couple of guitar players outside the blues, like Isaiah Sharkey and Jerry Mosey and Uncle Kevin Wilson in the gospel realm. These are players that I listen to who are fluent in that area, that I can borrow stuff from and pull into my blues. Josh Smith, too, who’s one of my favorite blues-fusion players.”
Of course, when showtime rolls around, the time for shedding is over and Ingram lets the spontaneous phrasing instincts that he’s cultivated for years take charge. Most of the time, he says, it’s not a process that involves the conscious mind. “For my live show, there are definitely spots in certain songs where I feel like a certain lick needs to go there, because it just sounds good on top of that progression at the time, so I do think in that way. But as far as soloing goes, it’s all improv.”
“I was a little scared, making a project with all these different genres. I didn’t want it to sound like a random jukebox thing.”
Another noteworthy fact about Hard Road is that it’s Ingram’s first release on Red Zero, the record company he recently co-founded with his manager, Ric Whitney (all previous Kingfish albums were issued by the respected blues label Alligator). According to Ingram, Red Zero is no mere vanity imprint. He and Whitney intend to build a significant stable of artists in the months and years ahead, inspired in part by SAR Records, the indie label founded by Sam Cooke in 1959 that was an early home to artists such as Bobby Womack, Johnnie Taylor, and Billy Preston.
“My manager and I formulated this idea,” Ingram explains, “because we saw a lot of talented artists out there who aren’t being shown in a proper light. We wanted to give them an opportunity. Sam Cooke gave some people a shot who hadn’t been lucky like he was. So that’s pretty much all I’m trying to do. And me owning my records, of course we thought about that as well. But for me, the bigger picture was just shining a light on a lot of young and oldand middle-aged talent, in the blues and outside the blues.”
Onstage with his signature Telecaster Deluxe signature at Buddy Guy’s Legends Club … with Buddy Guy.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Early Red Zero signings include Texas guitarist Mathias Lattin, winner of the 2023 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and St. Louis soul singer Dylan Triplett. “We have a lot of guitar slingers these days,” Ingram says, “but we don’t have much of a Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland type of thing going on, and that’s what Dylan has. We’re starting with the blues because that’s our forte and we want to take care of family first, but Ric and I are both lovers of music and we can definitely see ourselves venturing out into other genres.”
Before that happens, Ingram will be venturing out on the road once again, where he’s starting to like what he’s seeing. “Man, I think the blues is thriving,” he says. “And in a sense of young artists coming out of the woodwork, like the ones I just mentioned, Mathias and Dylan [both of whom are joining Kingfish on tour], and Stephen Hull and bands like Southern Avenue. It’s all out there—artists that are honoring the tradition but also creating a new sound and bringing that sound to a broader audience.”
Artists, in other words, like Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
PRS Guitars today announced the 40th Anniversary Special Semi-Hollow Limited Edition. Limited to just 280 pieces worldwide, this special edition features PRS McCarty III treble and bass pickups with a proprietary PRS Narrowfield in the center position, along with an artist-grade figured maple top, black limba back and neck, and Honduran rosewood fretboard and headstock veneer. Each guitar features the pre-factory eagle on the headstock and includes a 40th Anniversary certificate hand signed by Paul Reed Smith.
The PRS Special Semi-Hollow delivers twelve pickup combinations to players, thanks to the three-pickup configuration paired with a 5-way blade and two mini-toggles. Roll back the tone control for added growl, turn it up for some shimmer. The volume level between the humbucking and single-coil settings remains even, and the semi-hollow body provides airiness and depth to the guitar’s tone.
“This has been an incredible year of releasing special limited-edition guitars to celebrate our anniversary. The 40th Anniversary Special Semi-Hollow Limited Edition is the culmination of this year’s anniversary lineup. With a dozen pickup combinations, the ability to summon both humbucker and single-coil sounds, and beautiful woods, this instrument will inspire you to play. Have fun exploring this versatile tonal palette," said PRS Guitars Director of Marketing, Judy Schaefer.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year. For all of the latest news, clickwww.prsguitars.com/40 and follow @prsguitars on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, X, and YouTube.
The long-running punk quartet pick prototypes, P basses, and Pauls for their latest live shows.
On tour supporting their 12th full-length record, Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…, California rockers AFI rolled through Nashville’s Marathon Music Works in October. After first running down their rigs in 2017, PG’s Chris Kies linked up again with guitarist Jade Puget and bassist Hunter Burgan to see how their gear has evolved in the past eight years.
Puget found this Les Paul Standard hanging at Guitar Center 15 years ago, and it’s still his go-to live guitar. A surprisingly light specimen, it’s had a Seymour Duncan pickup swapped in, and it’s strung with Ernie Balls—usually .010s.
Throughout AFI’s set, Puget switches between tunings: D sharp, drop C sharp, D standard, and E standard.
Silver Surfer
This new Schecter, a prototype made for Puget, is his first ever silverburst, which saw service in the music video for “Holy Visions.” It’s loaded with a Sustainiac system in the neck position.
Willing and Ableton
Puget has experimented a lot to get his rig to this point. His signal runs through a pair of rack-mounted Line 6 Helix units in a stereo configuration, and also through a computer running Ableton that triggers the exact sound designs he created while recording. The RJM Mastermind and Effect Gizmo are programmed to control all pedals, the Helix, and Ableton.
Jade Puget’s Pedalboard
Most of Puget’s effects come from the Helix, but he also runs a few pedals in his rack, including an MXR EVH 5150 Overdrive and Carbon Copy, Boss DC-2W, RV-2, and BF-2, and a Keeley Compressor.
Another board carries a Boss TU-3, TC Electronic Mimiq, EHX The Clone Theory, TC Electronic Arena, MXR Echoplex, and L.R. Baggs Venue DI.
Blackout
In live contexts, Burgan uses Fender P basses exclusively. This is his No. 1, which he’s had since 2012.
Pinky
This dazzling Fender P was made custom for Burgan before this tour.
Triples is Best
Burgan runs this trio of Ampeg SVT Classics.
Hunter Burgan’s Rack Setup
Burgan uses a RJM Mastermind GT to control his in-show switching. In his backstage rack, there’s an EHX Bass Big Muff, Micro Synth, Satisfaction, Nano POG, Bass Clone, and Graphic Fuzz, and on a second shelf, there’s the rest of the collection: a Bass Soul Food, Battalion, Lizard King, Neo Mistress, and Memory Toy.
Harness the same tight low-end and attack Duff is known for with a pickup combination sure to inspire anyone looking for an aggressive bass tone without the hum.
Seymour Duncan is proud to offer this special pickup set featuring:
Combines a Hot Stack Jazz Bass Bridge with a Quarter Pound Precision Neck
Hum Cancelling
Fits most standard PJ routs.
Hand-built in Santa Barbara, CA
Since the mid-1980s, Duff McKagan’s bass lines and songwriting have powered hits from Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, and his other highly influential projects. On classic performances like “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, “Slither”, and “Welcome To The Jungle” his weapon of choice was a Fender® PJ bass loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups. Now you can harness that same tight low-end and sharp attack Duff is known for with the Duff McKagan Signature PJ Pickup Set.
Great bass players know that a PJ pickup combination can give you the punchy, thunderous tones needed for rock, punk, funk and beyond. Chasing that flexibility, Duff used his first record advance to buy a Fender Jazz Bass® Special with a Precision® split-coil pickup in the neck position and a Jazz bass pickup in the bridge. The original single-coil bridge pickup was swapped out for a Seymour Duncan Hot Stack Jazz bass® pickup, nixing the hum in all positions while also adding some extra output.
Years later, Duff was gifted a bass with the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-Bass® pickup in the neck. The large diameter alnico 5 magnets and high output coils gave Duff an exciting new dimension to his sound, and he began to pair it with the Hot Stack Jazz Bass bridge for a powerful pickup combination with plenty of grit, low end, and attack. This pairing became Duff’s signature sound, and he’s used these pickups on hit recordings and world tours ever since.
Seymour Duncan has partnered with Duff to offer these two pickups as the Duff McKagan Signature PJ Set, bearing his distinctive skull & crossbones logo. This combination is sure to inspire anyone looking for an aggressive bass tone without hum, perfect for stage and studio. Load these high output pickups into your PJ bass to achieve Duff’s trademark sound – noise free and with plenty of attitude.
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