Scott Fore plays Blackberry Blossom

I never heard of Scott Fore before but maybe I should have, as he is a great flatpicking guitarist that has won the National Flatpicking Championship according to the YouTube description.

Here’s Blackberry Blossom again (yesterday was Kenny Smith’s version) but this time you will hear Scott’s approach which is quite different than Kenny’s.

In addition to the usual  melody played in the first position close to the nut, Scott has worked out the melody up the neck as well.

Normally I’ve seen guitarists play that octave melody on the high E string, stretching from the G note to the B (just on one string).  Scott gets the opening G note on the B string 8 frets up which makes it so the high B note is not a stretch at all. Learn the Blackberry Blossom melody in this position and you will see that there is a whole world of notes there that are very accessible and easy to play.

Scott has obviously listened and learned from Tony Rice but, I like the direction he has gone with it. He also did some floaters in there (using open strings to play the melody when possible instead of closed positions).

Great stuff huh? Let me know what you think…