Country Guitar Lesson- Learn John Jorgenson's Classic "Hello Trouble" Country Guitar Solo

Hey y'all, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with another country chicken picking guitar lesson here for you, and I'm super excited about what I'm going to show you today. This is John John Jorgensen's solo to Hello Trouble by the Desert Rose Band. I think this was originally a Buck Owens tune that they had covered, um, but John just plays a killer solo in this. And in my opinion, this is one of the best country chicken picking solos, um, of all time. I know that's subjective, but I really love it, and it's one of those solos that I really do recommend to everybody who comes to me, um, who, when they're kind of new to getting in this style, I really recommend learning the solo note for note because it just teaches you a lot of the fundamentals about this style. So as always, hit the link down in the description to get the tabs for this, or in the top pinned comment, and let's jump into the lesson here. Okay, so, um, if you haven't heard this solo before, I've linked to it down in the description. Um, but, um, the chords are like, uh, 1, 2, 3, hello trouble.

Come on in, wanna talk about heartache. Where in the world you been? Ain't had the misery since you've been gone. Hello trouble, trouble, trouble, welcome home.

So it's just C, F, and G, but it's got that quick 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3. So that's, that's the chord progression that he's soloing over here. So let's go ahead and start with the first phrase, which is Okay, so, so what he's doing there, he's kind of starting in that C minor pentatonic. He takes a long bend on that first fret of that fifth string. And then we'll do— and then he slides up into the major. As a general rule, as far as the technique goes on this, um, when you've got some of these ideas that are played like on adjacent strings or up here As a general rule, have your pick hit the lower string and have your middle finger hit the higher string to give it that, you know, classic country guitar chicken picking popping sound. Okay, that's just not gonna sound— it's not gonna have the same effect if I flat pick all that. If I— it's completely different, does not have the same effect at all. Okay, so that's the first phrase, and he plays that over a C right there. And then we're going to jump in and do this little—

we're going to do—

okay, and again, same, same. And what that is, he's playing over G, and we're doing And that's basically— it's basically like a G Mixolydian scale in thirds. Okay, um, and, and we're just kind of—

okay.

And like I was saying a minute ago with the technique, when I'm playing that idea, um, on that first string, I'm hitting that with my middle finger, and then I'm hitting the second string with the pick. Okay, so before we go on, let's go ahead and let's, let's go back over what we've got here. So this is over a C chord.

We're doing Over G.

Okay, so just a couple of things to reference real quick here. So for this first idea, he's mixing like major and minor pentatonics. And if you'd like to see another video where I go really deep on how to create really cool country guitar lead lines, you know, mixing your major and minor pentatonics, check this video out right here. And then for this idea, I've done several videos on how you can take ideas like that and move them around and play them in different keys, and you can just kind of have a whole arsenal of country guitar licks based around those ideas. So check this video out right here, um, if you want to go deeper on those, uh, on those topics. Now after that, he's gonna do— all right, so this little— I love that. And that's back over a C chord. So, all right, so it's, you know, he's just pulling off from that first, uh, on the first string, but we're doing the 5th fret, 3rd fret, open. And then he's hitting this, this, um, E-flat, which is like the minor 3rd, which gives it some cool tension because it's over a C major chord. And then we'll do— okay, so again All right, and then after that he's gonna do— all right, so we'll do, um, let me take it from All right, um, all right, so that's, that's a pretty straightforward idea. It's almost kind of a little bluegrass-y.

All right.

And then after that, we're going to jump into this last phrase, which goes— and that's, that's over this, um, F to G. 1, 2, 1, 2. So 2 beats on an F, 2 beats on a G, and then And then he goes back to C and ends with that little pentatonic. And then the last lick here is really cool. We're gonna do— I'm not sure exactly exactly how he plays it with the technique, I find it's easier and kind of gives you the best sound if on this first one, hit that with your middle finger, and then here, pick, pick, pick at the end there. It's— I mean, it's mostly just pull-offs. All right, so that's kind of the last phrase there. So one more time, let me kind of take it from the second half of this solo here. We'll do Okay. So let me go through the whole thing one more time really slow.

So like a, hello trouble, trouble, trouble, welcome home.

2, 3. Okay, so that is John Jorgensen's solo to Hello Trouble by the Desert Rose Band, at least as best as my ear can decipher it. Um, but you know, as always, when, um, you know, when I'm learning or teaching these solos, we want to take these ideas, add them to our repertoire, and then try to use them in some other places. So like this first lick, that's out of C. You should immediately be taking that and moving that lick around, like up to D. To E, G. Let's see if we're going to do G. That is a great little passage, and you can expand on that passage a little bit too. If I go back down to C you can slide up another one. So like what we're doing here, so it starts with minor, minor, major, but then we can slide up to minor again. All right, so you can just expand on that lick, but for sure start taking that for that first passage and just start moving that around, playing that in some different places. Get that lick underneath your fingertips, add it to your vocabulary, and use it, you know, in appropriate settings here. I mean, I'm trying to— I mean, there's just so many. If I was doing like Working Man Blues, you know, you could use it to You can, you can kind of use it anywhere, like Folsom Prison Blues. I'm just kind of going off on a tangent here, but that's what I want you to do with some of these ideas. I always say this, but don't just use these licks as like, these are the licks that I play. Whenever I'm playing Hello Trouble in C, take these ideas and start to get creative with them. Move them around and get creative with this stuff. And again, that's how you build your repertoire. That's how you build your vocabulary of these licks. And when you start, you know, learning a little bit from a bunch of different players and combining this stuff, you'll start to come up with your own way of doing it, which is really fucking cool. All right, so let's keep going here. And then like I said, I've done a bunch of videos on how to take those little thirds like that around that kind of Mixolydian and move those around. But, um, so that was out of G. I wanted to do that out of A.

Let's see.

And there's a bunch of different places in a bunch of different tunes that you could use that in. Also, you don't have to be confined to, to the, um, first and second strings. You can move that around and say you could play that You could play that on the 3rd and 4th strings. There's just a bunch of different, you know, little applications on here. And then, um, that's a great thing to use anytime you're playing a C chord. All right, and then, and then right here You could expand on that, and you could use that really anywhere.

You could—

so anyway, that's just, that's just a couple of little applications there to some of these licks that you could take, and you can start to again build your vocabulary, build your repertoire here and just spend a little time, um, you know, going through and trying to use these in some other different places. And, and the reason that I'm kind of going off on some of these tangents here is learning these note-for-note solos is so much more valuable than just being able to play this specific solo on this specific song and impress a bunch of people like, hey, I can play, you know, badass John Jorgensen solo, which is great in and of itself, but there's so much more that you can get out of this. So anyway, rant over, tangent over right there. Um, thanks for hanging out today. And again, remember, um, if you'd like to get the tabs, link down in the description. I've also linked down in the description to the original recording of this tune. And, um, yeah, top pinned comment as well for the tabs. And, uh, as always, thank you so much for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.