If you only learn one blues instrumental in your life, make it this one.

"Hide Away" is Freddie King's 1961 instrumental, and it has been the unofficial entrance exam for blues guitar players for more than sixty years. Not because it's flashy. Because almost every fundamental skill a blues player needs is sitting somewhere inside it.

Shuffle feel. Major and minor pentatonic working together. Rhythm riffs that move across the chord changes. Turnarounds. Even a section where the shuffle straightens out into straight eighth notes. It's all in there across seven verses.

This lesson is a long one, and that's on purpose. Grab a coffee and let's get into it.

The setup

We're in the key of E blues. For most of the song you're working with an E power chord, an A power chord, and a B power chord. The B gets some 7th and 9th voicings along the way, and we'll deal with those as they come up.

There are seven verses, or seven times through what is mostly a standard 12-bar blues progression. Four bars of E, two bars of A, two bars back on E, one bar of B, one bar of A, one bar of E, and then a last bar that splits between E and the B.

I say mostly, because verse three breaks the pattern. More on that below.

Verse 1: the signature lick

The song opens with a pickup lick that comes back over and over: open B string twice, hammer on to the second fret of the B with your middle finger, then the open high E string.

That little three-note idea is the DNA of the whole tune.

This is also a great example of something a lot of players miss. Most of this song leans on the major pentatonic, not the minor. That's a big part of why it sounds bright and bouncy instead of dark. If your blues playing only ever lives in minor pentatonic, this song will open a door for you.

From there, you slide from the second fret to the fourth fret on the high E, then drop into the standard blues shuffle riff on the A string, rocking between the second and fourth frets with palm muting the whole time.

Verse 2: same shape, new details

Verse two opens with a trill. You're going back and forth between the open B string and the second fret for a full measure.

The rest of the verse works the same territory as verse one with small rhythmic changes. The last four bars are almost identical to verse one, except for the final couple of notes that set up what's coming.

Verse 3: where the form breaks

This is the verse everybody gets tripped up on.

The progression changes here. Instead of one measure of the five chord, you get two measures of B. If you're counting on autopilot, this is where you fall off. Know it's coming.

The other thing happening in verse three is that we're taking a single rhythm riff and moving it around to cover each chord. Same shape, different string set. Learn it once over the E, and you've learned it over the A. The B is the exception, since you lose your open strings and have to play it up the neck.

Verse 4: another movable riff

Verse four does the same trick with a different riff. Open string twice, then a triplet moving from the third fret to the fourth and over to the next string.

The first eight measures are manageable. It gets tricky starting at the five chord, where the turnaround stacks up some fast triplet moves. Slow it down.

One fingering note that matters more than it looks: how you play the E riff here sets up your hand for the B7 that's coming. Getting your second finger onto that second fret early makes the next two measures work.

Verse 5: up the neck

Verse five is the most different of the seven. It opens on an E9 chord up at the twelfth fret, then walks down the neck with a slide lick that starts around the thirteenth fret and works its way back to open position.

If you've never played an E9 voicing before, the fingering is third finger on the twelfth fret of the D, second finger on the eleventh fret of the G, first finger on the ninth fret of the B, pinky on the twelfth fret of the high E.

The descending lick is one of the most satisfying things in the song once it's under your fingers.

Verse 6: the shuffle straightens out

Verse six is a version of the Peter Gunn riff, and the feel changes. The swing shuffle straightens into straight eighth notes.

The pattern is simple: open, open, first fret, open, third fret, open, fifth fret, fourth fret. Palm muted throughout. You move it across the string sets as the chords change.

Simple to play, but the feel change is what makes it work. If you keep swinging through this verse, it won't sound right.

Verse 7: bringing it home

Verse seven circles back to verse one territory with rhythmic variations, then finishes with a closing turnaround that doesn't appear anywhere else in the song. You leave the downbeat empty, climb down the high E and B strings, then climb back up and finish with a slide into the fourth fret on the high E and the fifth fret on the B.

How to actually learn this

One piece of advice that matters more than any of the fingerings:

Listen to this song until you're just about sick of it.

If you can hear it in your head, the rhythms take care of themselves. Most of the difficulty in "Hide Away" isn't in the notes, it's in the feel. Triplets, swung eighths, the straight-eighth section. All of that is easier to play than it is to read.

A couple of other notes:

Freddie used a thumbpick, which means he was likely playing mostly downstrokes. I use a flatpick with alternate picking because that's what I'm used to. Downstrokes will get you closer to the original feel if you want to chase it.

Get the underlying pulse in your body first. Before you try any of the licks, be able to play the basic shuffle riff cleanly and steadily. That pulse runs under the entire song, whether you're playing it or not.

If you want to get more comfortable with the 12-bar form and stop sounding like you're running up and down pentatonic shapes when you solo, check out the Blues Jam Jumpstart. It's a free mini-course covering the three main areas every player needs to start improvising the blues. 

You can find it at https://www.guitarfam.com/bluesjam.

Happy strumming,

Nate