Here is a tasty Muddy Waters-style Backing track in E minor. It uses a loose 12 bar blues structure, but use your ears cause there’s a few curveballs. This is a funky electric Delta Blues track to rip your meanest leads over. To me it also has a very Texas, ZZ Top feel to it. You can use your opened E pentatonic scale, which is a great starting place. As always leave the few lower strings out to avoid sounding like you are just running through a scale soullessly. Also make use of hammer-ons and pull-offs to all the opened strings, as they are all available in this key. Then, practice floating through every pattern (5) of the scale until you end up back in pattern 1 but up on the 12th fret, a full octave up. See if you can develop some cool patterns floating from pattern 1 up to pattern 4. A slide can also be employed for this jam. Make use of the opened notes, slide into the chord changes, and let your ears guide you.
When it comes to Muddy Waters my favorite song is “Champagne and Reefer” Give it a listen for some inspiration. Look at the original studio version by Muddy Waters, it’s in A minor, and I have the main guitar lick tabbed below. Other than that it’s loosely based on a 12 bar blues style progression, but like most songs, doesn’t stick to it 100%, but the thing to keep in mind, its still a 1 4 5 progression. Take it from there and use your ears. I wasnt able to embed the Muddy Waters version, but here’s a cool cover, nothing like the original, featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan and Buddy guy.
