Blues & Rock Guitar Lessons

11/22/2025

Fun song to play. “Belief” off of CONTINUUM 2006. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel “Jake Andrews Music” for tons of lesson videos, guitar covers and music history!

10/14/2024

More fun from the Experience Hendrix Tour with
Christone "KINGFISH" Ingram
Kevin McCormick
Mato Nanji
Chris Layton

09/01/2024

New Video Up On My Youtube Channel For All Of You Guitarists...
Come Subscribe To My Channel And Check Out Many More Videos Like This One. Hope You Enjoy It!

The C-A-G-E-D System is an essential concept to understand that will open up the guitar fretboard in an easy to visualize way. This will lay the foundation f...

08/31/2024

Austin Friends, I'll be back at Antone's on Thursday, Sept. 12th 8:30-10:00 PM, with Chris Maresh Tom Brechtlein and David Webb We'll be coming in HOT:) Get your tickets now at https://www.ticketmaster.com/jake-andrews-plus-robert-parker-jr-austin-texas-09-12-2024/event/3A00611D11057358
Hope to see y'all there!

08/19/2024

Sick Riff from Cheap Trick 1990:)

SICK RIFF from 1990. Enjoy!https://www.bluesrockguitarlessons.com/sales-page-freddieking"The Ultimate Freddie King Instrumentals" Guitar ...

05/13/2024

Check out this new very detailed lesson and tribute to the great Lonnie Mack on my YouTube Channel...Hope you enjoy!

00:00 : Song Playthrough02:25 : Video Intro02:43 : Lonnie Mack and "Memphis" history07:54 : Lonnie and SRV09:39 : Lesson Begins56:21 : OutroLonnie Mack was a...

05/06/2024

Hi friends, check out my newest release, "I Don't Need You Now (2024 Remix)". Stream it on any of these platforms! Rock on:)

Stream and Save I Don't Need You Now (2024 Remix) - Distributed by DistroKid

05/04/2024

GREAT early Austin Music Story from my dad. Hope y'all enjoy!

"The Clown’s Den..."

In early 1966, I was living on the 2nd floor in a turn of the century boarding house at the SE corner of 18th & Brazos. Gilbert Shelton (Wonder Wart-Hog Cartoonist) was living next door at a similar house on Brazos. After water balloon fights between the two homes, we’d walk the short block to San Jacinto and drink 18 cent Pearl Longnecks at the Clown’s Den on 1809 San Jacinto. The Clown’s Den was as redneck as ya get. There was a small stage and dance floor across from the bar where local country bands played Friday and Saturday nights.

I got to know the owner and asked him if he’d book my frat band, The Chelsea, on a Friday/Saturday in February. We were primarily a blues band but did Stones, The Animals, Yardbirds and pop stuff of the era. Anyway the owner said "if I book y’all, I’ll loose all my regular clientele." I told him "we’ll run a 1/4 page add (see below) in the 'Daily Texan' and you’ll sell more beer in two nights than you sell in two weeks!"

On Friday the 17th we walked to the club, instruments in hand, and when we reached San Jacinto there was a line of frat & sorority kids three blocks long waiting to see The Chelsea “back from European tour”. As a band we never set foot there:) The kids assumed we were a new British Invasion rock & roll band!

Travis Rivers, who later became manager of the roots/rock band Mother Earth was in town from San Francisco. He was staying next door with Gilbert and asked if he could put on a San Fran psychedelic light show (the 1st in Austin) while we played. We didn’t really know what he was talking about but said, “sure”. He hung a sheet on the wall behind the stage and set up a crude projector with different color oils to project psychedelic images behind the band. After our last set (12 AM closing on Friday’s back then) he came up to me and said he was driving to Port Arthur to pickup a chick who he was taking to San Francisco to audition for a band called "Big Brother" (whoever they were). He said he’d be back the next night.

On the drive back to Austin the chick asked him "what kind of music did the band she was auditioning for play." He said, "we’ll go hear Toad’s (my nickname at the time) band when we get in." During a break that night, Travis came up to me and said "that chick digs your playing and wants to buy you a beer." I went over to their table and there was a Pearl waiting for me. I don’t remember the conversation but the next time I saw Janis was when we (Mother Earth) opened for her at San Francisco’s famed Avalon Ballroom in the summer of 68’.

The owner made so much money off us the following month that he leased the joint to Jay Verholtz, a local photographer, who actually took the below photo. Jay hired a bunch of hippie carpenters to build book shelves filled with garage sale books. There was a phone booth in the club so kids would call their parents and say were at the library. 'The Library' (name change) became THE music venue hang out for straight and hippie UT students alike. The club rarely carded students and most had fake ID’s.

We started playing five nights a week there and on the weekends Jay would bring up Jerry Jeff Walker from the folk scene in Houston to open for us. Odd combination but it worked.

The word got out and local players started frequenting the club, including Ed Guinn ("The Conqueroo" founder) who was in the UT marching band at the time but wanted to learn the electric bass. Gilbert Shelton would come down and play Johnny Johnson licks on an old upright piano by the side of the stage and sing his favorite Chuck Berry hits. Also Powell St. John, later of Mother Earth, would sit in on harmonica. One night The Sunliners, minus Sunny, came in…."Sauce" Gonzales on his Hammond B3 with a full horn section and we played Bobby Bland stuff all night. In 2009 I played a tribute to Doug Sahm at Antone's "Sauce" came up to me and said, “I remember playing with your band….we (the Sunliners) called y’all the hippies”.

At the end of the spring semester we parted ways.

Jerry Jeff went on to New York and founded "Circus Maximus" and later recorded "Mr. Bojangles" at Sun Studio in Memphis before returning to Austin.

From the photo:

Daryl Rutherford became the drummer with the Conqueroo. Benny Rowe was the guitarist with drummer Rusty Wier of the Whig. George Kinney, a school mate of Roky Erickson, founded the Austin psychedelic band Golden Dawn.
I went on to play the Gulf Coast Chitlin circuit clubs with Grady Gaines who was the leader of the Upsetters(Little Richard’s band from 54’ to 57’/Little Willie John/Sam Cooke etc.) and on to Mother Earth from 68’ thru 76’. Bob Arthur got drafted, spent two years in Korea and then joined Mother Earth.

In closing the club became "The Fred" in late 66’. Jimmie Vaughan at age 15, played his first Austin club gig there in early 1967 with an old Telecaster and a double stack Vox Beatle rig.

At a later date it briefly became the 'Club Saracen'.

Lot of cool history in that old red neck beer joint. Across the street was an old green building where Texas politicos hung out drinking beer and playing pool.

Best Regards,

John Andrews