Chords for China Grove Acoustic Guitar Lesson - Doobie Brothers

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[D] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
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[D] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[C#m] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ [A] _
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[C#] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
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[A] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
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[G#m] _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ _ _
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So, I'm going to go ahead and start the video. _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ [F#m] _ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _
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_ [C] _ _ [D] _ [E] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
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_ _ China Grove.
In this lesson, we are going to tackle a rock and roll _ electric guitar _ [Gm] classic Tom Johnston
tune [G#] from the Doobie Brothers, of course.
It's the third album, 1973, The Captain and Me.
Here it is.
Back then, I could only afford 93 cents for records, [F] and _ [G] that's the bargain basement one
that I found.
_ _ But this tune has just some [G#] fun, fun stuff to play on [N] the guitar.
Now, we are mostly going to look at the _ rhythm guitar parts with a few little fills, not
the lead that happens at the end.
So, in the lesson here, we've got everything I just played in the play through we're going
to talk about.
There's a tablature, three pages of tablature that show you everything I just did.
There's a page that has just a chart, the chords and the lyrics underneath it.
So, if you just want to strum the chords and sing it, you can get through it that way as well too.
But, this song [E] has all kinds of cool [G] stuff.
You know, driving percussive [G#] rhythms in it, nice little fills, [E] _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [N] _
and little licks, other
types [E] of fills, _
_ _ _ [D#] quick chord [A] changes, _
_ _ [C] _ _ [N] none of which are easy.
So, well, _ _ yeah, none of which are easy.
I'm sticking to that story.
So, China Grove was, Tom Johnson put it together, and _ probably coincidentally, there's a tiny
town called China Grove near San Antonio, Texas.
And he just happened to be _ playing this rockin' tune, didn't really have a name for it, they
were temporarily calling it Parliament because they name songs after the type of cigarettes
that Tom smoked on _ any given day.
But he heard one of their piano players messing around with some little chords that sounded
a little _ oriental sound to him.
So, all of a sudden, rewrote the lyrics, China Grove, there you have it.
And the rest is history.
_ So, the story is kind of interesting, little _ approach to a Chinese town in southern Texas.
I have some relatives that hung out in _ Chinese towns in El Paso, Texas, not too far away
from San Antonio.
Well, _ on a global scale at least.
So, anyway, that's it.
Let's get [D#] into some of the stuff that's going to happen in the lesson, mostly rhythm guitar
and a few fills and some _ rockin' strummin', China Grove. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ China Grove is mostly going to be power chords with some cool little [N] fills and runs in there.
So, I'm at the seventh fret of the, and the power chord is based on the fifth string,
this is making it an E.
[E] So, I'm playing the seventh fret of the fifth string and the ninth
fret of the fourth and third strings.
You could either do this with your [G#] three three-fingers, your first and your third and fourth, or you
could flatten out your third to get these two notes.
It really doesn't matter, whatever's more comfortable for you.
And then we're going to play power chords in mostly three spots.
It's going to go from E at the seventh fret [D] to D at the fifth fret to [C#] C sharp at the fourth
fret and then A [A] down open.
So, [F#] here I'm using the fifth string open as the root of the [A] chord and then I'm just flattening
out my first finger to get the [F#] notes on the fourth and the third strings. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
Nothing really too special going on with the right hand.
You just have to keep the steady alternating going down and [A] up, _ always down on the beats
and up on the ands, with a couple of just things you have to watch out for.
And that's what we're going to call focused strumming, where you're not hitting all six
strings very often in this song. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Let's take a detailed look [G] now at everything [D#] that happens in China Grove.
A couple of attachments, there's a two-page part that is a chart that has the chords and
[G] the words at the top and the words at the bottom and to the [F] verses and the chorus.
And then there's the guitar pro file, which you can of course print up as a PDF, that
has tablature to everything.
So get those out and let's start working our way through this and talk about each little technique.
The first thing that happens in the introduction, and I'm mostly looking at the tablature here
because that has the details of what you really have to be thinking about.
But the [G] chord chart and the lyrics are just kind of a _ guideline as to _ _ how it's arranged
and some things like that.
So taking a look at the first line of the intro, we've got our [E] E power chord, _ although
it's really more of an E major [A#] chord.
I mentioned earlier that [F] most of the time we just need the three or four lowest [E] strings
on the E, but we do [G] want to hear that G sharp, _ _ _ _ _ at least at the very beginning. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Let's take a look at the bridge now.
Hopefully get out your tablature and we'll talk about the chords that are happening in there.
Now this is a pretty easy set of chords.
They're all bar chords, well, they're bar chords for a while.
So with just a couple of little [D#] embellishments.
And so in the first measure we just need the [G] C sharp minor at the [C#m] ninth fret, _ _ _ a couple of downs.
The strumming here is not really important.
It doesn't matter if you get the downs and the ups exactly the way I have it in the tab
and [F] especially not important that you get the exact set of strings in there.
So the rhythm is more important.
It's almost more important to look at, well, to look at the music rather than the tab,
just to get the feel for where the accents are.
But there is one nice little _ _ _ embellishment in the very first measure and that is on that
[C#m] C sharp minor, _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ slow it down. _
Metronome at 88.
I'm going to try to play through as accurately as I can the tablature.
We'll do the intro, _ verse, chorus.
We'll skip the first ending and head right into the bridge.
Let's see what happens. 88.
_ [E] 2, 3, 4. _ _
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_ _ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ You've got to do three of those. _
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