Finding a good bluesy electric isn't just about getting a genre-specific guitar. Because even if a style of music is the end goal, the guitar you buy still needs to suit you, as a player. It needs to be the right fit just like a new car or an expensive sweater.
We don't just want to say, "Oh, this guitar is a popular option in the blues genre, so let's buy it." Instead, find a guitar that is, yes, blues-friendly, but is also ideal for your specific situation. As it turns out: There are a lot of great guitars for the blues genre that are also highly unique and tailored to a certain kind of player in a particular situation. So, whether you're a beginner, professional, a performer, or session guitarist, there are blues-friendly guitars that will be accommodating to your situation.
Best Electric Guitars for Blues (top 4 picks)
Guitar | Audio | RateD | Shop |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Fender Player Stratocaster | 88.5 | |
 | Epiphone ES-339 | 83.0 | |
 | Squier Classic Vibe '70s Jaguar | 79.7 | |
 | Squier Classic Vibe '70s Telecaster | 78.8 |
1. Fender Player Stratocaster Electric Guitar
BEST FOR: Most skill levels, lead guitarists, blues, rock, and session or studio work.
TONE
85
FEATURES
92
VERSATILITY
86
PRICE
92
- Modern bridge design is steady and functional
- Tremolo does a good job staying in tune
- Tone is crisp and inviting, especially on cleaner settings
- Alder body and modern neck are both still in the mix
- Lots of sounds with the five-way pickup selector
- More stock parts in this model
- Some "feel quality" drop off from the American series (though it's to be expected)
Your electronics setup is the five-way pickup selector and the Stratocaster single coil arrangement, while all the trimmings and aesthetics give the authentic Strat look and feel. While there are differences between this and the American model, they're pretty difficult to tell apart, on the surface.
The noticeable differences between the Player and American Strats is much less than that of the Epiphone and Gibson Les Pauls. The Players are ideal for both beginners and professionals, accommodating nearly any skill level or style
In particular, it's one of the single most popular guitars within the blues genre.
Perhaps the Stevie Ray Vaughan or Eric Clapton enthusiast would agree.
The tone from the single coil pickups is crisp and responsive, giving off a clearly-defined imprint of your picking pattern and keeping a sweet, bluesy tone on almost all settings.
Not unlike the Deluxe Player's Strat, the Standard Stratocaster's tone is addictive and inviting, making melodic licks sing clearly and holding plenty of sustain on open chords.
There are few situations or skill levels that will exclude the usefulness and practicality of a Player Stratocaster.
Moreover, the blues genre is very accommodating of this particular guitar.
2. Squier Classic Vibe '70s Telecaster
BEST FOR: Country, blues, rock, all styles, beginners and intermediate players, budget shoppers and performing.
TONE
84
FEATURES
74
VERSATILITY
75
PRICE
82
- Great price point
- Tone is surprisingly good for cheap, stock pickups
- Aesthetics are excellent
- Chambered body has a nice, natural resonance, even when unplugged
- Lots of cheap, stock parts
- No solid tonewood
Squier’s Classic Vibe Telecaster is partially hollowed out via a chambered Mahogany body that pairs nicely with the Maple neck and fingerboard, both for tone and aesthetic purposes. The pickups are actually a Fender Wide Range humbucker configuration that push a little more brightness into the tone of the guitar.
That tone mixes well with finger picking and lead guitar licks in general. Moreover, the guitar has a generally strong sound, which is surprising when you consider that it's a Squier and not a full-blown Fender Tele.
Am I losing too much value dropping from Fender to Squier?
There's certainly a quality hit when you go with Squier instead of Fender. However, the nicer Squier guitars pack a remarkable amount of quality into their instruments, especially the Vintage and Classic Vibe lines. Whether you go with them or Fender should be an issue of budget and context. The way I usually advise people is that Squiers make great first guitars while Fenders make great second guitars.
3. Epiphone ES-339 P90 Pro Hollowbody Electric Guitar
BEST FOR: All styles, all skill levels, the "second" guitar, the studio rat, church and other live performing scenarios.
TONE
78
FEATURES
89
VERSATILITY
80
PRICE
85
- Very affordable
- Smaller design is comfortable and easy to play
- Clean tones sound great
- Neck feels great for rhythm and lead styles
- Grover tuners
- Artistically detailed
- Pickups are just okay
- Jack has been known to get a little loose
The pickups on this guitar are Epiphone’s take on the Gibson Burstbuckers and sound fairly decent. This still means they're a stock Epiphone set, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. By most accounts and reviews, they still sound quite good.
Tonewood
The Maple top is laminate, though rests on a solid interior block with the chambered sections of the guitar hollowed out on either side.
This gives it a more light and airy response, which is less "big" than what you might expect from a hollow body guitar. It's far more nuanced and subtle than what you'll get from guitars that keep the larger body design.
Some of that is also due to the laminate construction.
Size and the Smaller Body Design
That small construction has a few advantages:
First, it's just easier to hold and play, which bodes well for those who want a blues-friendly guitar and like the hollow body sound/look but want to avoid the bulkiness of some of the larger models.
Furthermore, the tone it creates is going to be more appealing to lead players or those who want a guitar that's going to have some flexibility.
The ES-339, while excelling in a blues role, can hang in nearly any style of music, perhaps with the exception of heavy metal.
4. Squier Classic Vibe '70s Jaguar Electric Guitar
BEST FOR: Beginner and intermediate players, blues, jazz, rhythm and lead.
TONE
78
FEATURES
78
VERSATILITY
80
PRICE
83
- Price is tough to beat
- Duncan designed pickups look the part and sound surprisingly good
- Basswood body provides a decent tone
- Lots of stock parts
- Cable jack tends to loosen
Once again, we should note that Squiers are not Fenders. But at the price tag you won't find much to complain about regarding Squier's Modified Jaguar. Despite the fact I've played guitar for two decades, this axe still appeals to me a lot.
The Duncan-designed pickups are similar to the Seymour Duncan Antiquity set, though they're a more stripped-down, budget version. They still go a long way in creating a great looking guitar that’s hard to distinguish from the Fender version.
Highlight features include the dual circuit switching and a vintage, non-locking tremolo. The tone is crisp and warm with a strong resonance, which sounds particularly inviting coming off clean lead melodies and pick scrapes.
I love this version of the Jaguar for beginners and even intermediate players, especially those of you who are big time Kurt Cobain fans.
What features make a guitar bluesy?
Now that we've listed our recommendations, what exactly is it that makes a guitar blues-friendly? While we talked a little bit about this earlier in the article, let's take a closer look at some of the features that should matter most to a blues guitarist.
Single Coil Pickups
While not all of these guitars have single coil pickups, we prefer the single coil arrangement of a Stratocaster or Telecaster-style electric.
Single coil pickups, like those typically seen in a Fender Stratocaster, are great for the blues style.
That's because single coils are a little lighter and "snappier" giving you that increased definition and "wailing" tone quality, particularly on string bends and vibrato.
Coil Tapping (for humbuckers)
Coil tapping is a wiring technique for humbuckers that allows you to split the humbucker coils in two, effectively turning them into single coils that are just positioned side by side.
If you're going to have humbuckers, make sure you can split them into single coils via coil-tapping.
When we're looking for blues electric guitars that also use dual humbuckers, it's nice to have coil-tapping available if we want to split each humbucker pair and get a lighter, more Stratocaster-esque sound. Note that coil-tapping is usually engaged with some kind of push-pull tone or volume knob.
Chambered or Hollow Body Design
Of the seven guitars we've recommended, three of them have a chambered or hollow body design. This is popular design for among blues guitarists for a couple reasons. First, hollowbody electric guitars tend to have a warmer and softer tone, pairing really well with a tube amp. They also tend to sound a little more natural, bringing some of the elements of an acoustic guitar over to the electric guitar realm. Particularly if we have humbuckers instead of single coil pickups, it's nice to balance that out with a hollowbody design.
A Slim Neck Design
While blues isn't necessarily about fretboard speed, it is often more of a lead guitar discipline that requires a lot of horizonal fretboard movement. To accommodate this, we recommend electric blues players aim for a guitar that has a slim and faster neck design.
Electric guitars with wide necks are typically better for rhythm, while slimmer neck designs are more accommodating of melodic lead players. How slim a neck is can be related to the shape of the neck, radius, and actual width at the first fret position, so make sure to read the spec sheet and the fine print.
Distortion Source
For blues guitar players we don't typically recommend a super heavy distortion or saturated gain levels. Unlike rock and metal, blues relies on subtlety and nuance, meaning you want to hear every aspect of each note you play. This means that high gain levels or super-thick distortions are not going to be a good fit if you buy one of these guitars specifically for a blues-focused style.
The Boss BD-2 Blues Driver distortion pedal is a good example of a lighter, blues-friendly distortion source. Flickr Commons image via Aaron Warren
Instead, aim for a distortion with the following characteristics:
Low Gain Levels
Whatever distortion you use, whether it comes from your amp or a pedal, make sure the gain is down at a moderate to lower level. You want a slight "breakup" of your clean signal, as opposed to a full distortion layer. This article addresses blues amp settings from a pedal and amplifier perspective.
Smooth Instead of Edgy or Harsh
While blues can definitely have an edge to it, we don't necessarily want that to come from our distortion. In other words, it should be smooth instead of biting. As with the gain levels, this is usually an issue of EQ, so we would advise trying to tune your distortion as follows:
- Lower treble
- Higher bass
- Low reverb
- Moderate to high presence (power amp level)
- Moderate to high midrange (preamp level)
All guitar rigs are different, so you might have to experiment with different settings before you settle on something that isn't too harsh.
Lower Sustain from Distortion (rely on guitar to provide natural sustain)
While high levels of distortion can encourage and provide sustain, blues players should look for sustain to come from their guitar and not simply their distortion. This is why we go back to the hollowbody design and some natural elements of an electric guitar that can produce sustain with even just a clean sound. In other words, don't rely on distortion alone for your sustain. Make sure you're getting a nice, ringing sound from your guitar, naturally.
What guitar do popular blues players use?
There have been a ton of really good blues guitarists over the years. However, their guitar choice has had a fairly consistent theme, while variation has occurred within that theme. Here are a few examples:
- Stevie Ray Vaughan: Fender Stratocaster
- Jeff Beck: Fender Stratocaster
- Eric Clapton: Fender Stratocaster
- B.B. King: Gibson Hollowbody
- Joe Bonamassa: Gibson Hollowbody
- Freddie King: Gibson Hollowbody
Here's a look at one of the last configurations of Stevie Ray Vaughan's electric guitar rig before he died.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was all about Stratocasters and not much else.
The same deal went for Jimi Hendrix.
You'll see a lot of Fender Stratocasters without a lot of extras:
Jimi Hendrix played Fender Stratocasters, almost exclusively.
While guitar use certainly varies between other artists, the biggest names in blues guitar have consistently wielded Fender Stratocasters, some kind of Gibson (or Epiphone) hollowbody, or - less frequently - a Fender Telecaster. Our list has been loosely based on those guitars, targeting a lower price range for your wallet's sake.
What's a good price range to target?
Obviously the more you spend, the better your experience is going to be. This is true regardless of the musical style your pursuing. Even blues guitar, characterized by an "organic" tone that's naturally rough around the edges, will sound better with the nicer guitars.
It's impossible to get away from that reality. However, I've found that a happy medium seems to occur in the $500 to $800 price range.
Here you find some great deals on instruments that certainly aren't the best, but can sound incredibly good, and give you a decent experience that you can't draw out of a $200 guitar.
I've found that a happy medium seems to occur in the $500 to $800 price range.
My advice for those looking for an electric guitar in the blues style, is to spend between $500 and $800, assuming you don't want to go higher into the $1200 or $1500 range.
Conclusion
These guitars all do a great job at capturing the feel and the "vibe" of blues electric playing. However, there are certainly other options that I'm not as privy to. Feel free to leave those in the comments section below. Also, if you have questions about these guitars or other electric guitars that I didn't list here, drop those in as well and I'll do my best to help out.
More Electric Guitar Roundups
Written by Bobby Kittleberger on Electrics & Roundups
Written by Bobby Kittleberger on Electrics & Roundups
We link to products on Sweetwater that help support our site and keep the lights on. If you click through our orange buttons, we might earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you all for your generous support over the years! ~ Bobby and Danielle
Our disclosure↬
Hi Bobby,
Thanks for this great article. I’m looking at the Epihone ES339 but there is none being selled in my region.
Rather, at the same price point, there is a PRS standard SE 24. Do you think this guitar is good to play blue? I really like the John Mayer’s tone in I guess I just feel like. I think the Epiphone will probably get me closer to that tone.. Too bad!
Also do you have any amp or pedal recommendation for beginners like me?
Thanks!
I’d say the PRS SE Standard is a good place to start. It’s versatile and can handle a wide range of styles. In terms of amps, what’s your price range?
I don’t think I’d want to spend more than 300$ but I’m open for suggestions. I’m looking at the Marshall CODE25. The concepts seems nice, some review said the speaker is not as good but I like the fact that I can have customize a wide range of sounds with a cheap amp. What do you think?
We’ve been pretty impressed with the Boss Katana series, but the Marshall CODES are similar.
I have the Squier thinline. I did a couple of mods. Installed middle pickup flat pole 70’s Strat in the middle position, and a 5 way Super Strat switch. My other personal chioces are Epiphone BB3, Epiphone SG Pro 400, and a Gretsch Electromatic G5122.
Sounds great, Hutch. Why only the middle rail though?
Hi! Thanks for the guide! I’m actually was looking to buy the deluxe players strat but it appears it is discontinued. Any recommendations as kind of a replacement or second option instead of that one?
Hey man – if you were already in that price range, I’d go with the American Strat. If you still want to tweak it, we’ve got pickup swapping options here: https://www.guitarchalk.com/gear/stratocaster-pickups/
Hope this helps.