Last weekend I've played with my band on a nice festival in Luxembourg on the same bill with the great "Tower Of Power" from Oakland. This was such a thrill to see this stunning Band again (plus they have a fantastic new guitar player - Jerry Cortez his name) - so I came up with my idea to do a little funk rhythm guitar workshop.
If you wanna play tower-of-power-funk-guitar-style (wich basics onthe classic James Brown stuff) - the first and most important rule is: keep your right hand in 16th notes all time, constantly doing down- and upstrokes - no matter what notes you gonna play with the left hand. On this 16ths groove you have 4 notes on every beat (16 notes in every bar). So you just pick up the few notes I'm playing here, but the right hand gos up and down all the time.
I mute the notes/chords by loosing the left hand right after the attack.
Another rule Big Jay McNeely told me once, when I was getting fancy with rhythm guitar playing during a concert: "Don't change rhythm.... !"
So keep the pattern and do it the whole song... (basicly...)
FREE TABs of he Lick are here: http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8633/lickoftheweek16.jpg