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Robert Johnson is generally considered by the pop music world to be the grand-daddy of the blues. Although serious blues aficionados know there were many significant blues musicians before Johnson, there can be no denying Robert Johnson's huge contributions to blues music.
Some of the most admired aspects of Robert Johnson's guitar work were his intros and "turnarounds" (the lick at the end of a song that leads back to the beginning). The tab presented above is one of Robert Johnson's intros to a 12-bar blues in the key of A, in both standard notation and tab.
This is a blues intro that, with slight adjustments, will work in many different situations. Playing the intro in different keys will require playing a barre chord in the fourth bar of the lick, instead of relying on open strings.
If you're going to try and play the above with a pick... you're going to have a more difficult time. Robert Johnson, in keeping with many blues players of the time, played without a pick. Playing without a pick enabled Johnson to include moving bass-lines, while also playing upper register notes that moved independently of the bass figure.