Recently, I read an interview with John Fogerty. He 
commented that he had never heard a bad version of 
"Proud Mary" because the arrangement is so simple. 
There's a lesson here for blues musicians. If you listen 
to the music of Lightning Hopkins, Hank Williams, and 
Muddy Waters, you'll find that it's all basically bare-
bones music played with tons of emotion and intensity. 
There are very few unnecessary notes or changes.

Let's keep this is mind as we try to build a fingerstyle 
blues arrangement of the song "Fill 'Em Up" in the key 
of E. We'll keep things simple at first and just get a feel 
for the song and what it's trying to say. Taking this 
approach ans playing to your own technical ability is 
very important. Get into the music and save the 
pyrotechnics for you scale exercises or practice 
sessions. Remember that when you're playing guitar -- 
especially when you're playing the blues -- it should 
look easy.

In "Fill 'Em Up" I've decided to use an alternating 
bass. This was a tough choice because I love the 
rough edge of the monotone bass style, but I felt that 
the alternating bass would give us more options in the 
development of the song.