Chords for Doyle Bramhall II on Guitar Universe Video - Part 1
Tempo:
89.25 bpm
Chords used:
E
G
A
D
C#
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[A]
[D] [E]
[G] [E]
Singer-songwriter Doyle Bramhall II may have three great solo albums under his belt, but
he's also made quite a name for himself playing guitar with music legends like Eric Clapton,
Roger Waters, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as his own band, the Archangels.
In part one of our interview, Doyle talked to host Dave Levita about his start in the
business and his unusual upside-down left-handed [A] playing.
[C#]
When did you first start playing guitar?
When I was six years old, [N] I started playing drums because my father played drums.
My whole family sort of consisted of drummers, so I switched to bass at 11, and then we had
a shortage of guitar players around the time I turned 13, and so I just decided to play
guitar just for that reason.
Shortly after is when Stevie Ray Vaughan sort of came back around.
Sorry to interrupt, came back around from?
Well, my dad was playing with Stevie and bands, Stevie Vaughan and Jimmy Vaughan, probably
late 60s, early 70s, and then Stevie sort of went off on his own for a while, but he
started to come back around when I was 13, so I got a taste of that kind of [G] guitar playing,
which nobody else was doing at the time.
So that's sort of why I started playing guitar, just being around musicians my whole life.
And it wasn't that long afterwards that you were playing with him, right?
Yeah, it was about a year later when I
When you were 14?
Yeah.
Wow.
I took the stage with Stevie the first time.
I mean, I was a really old friend of his.
My dad was a really old friend of his, and I think he liked to sort of egg me on, so
when I was just turning 15, I just went to see a show and was backstage, and he was like,
you want to sit in tonight?
So I just started playing, and he was like, no, no, get up, you're bad, you've got to get up.
And so when he introduced me, it was
I remember hearing, one of the best guitar players I've ever heard. Yeah.
And then I got up, and I think, I broke like every string on the guitar, I couldn't even play.
When I turned 17, I got a call from Jimmy Vaughn saying that he needed a second guitar
player in the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Cool.
And that's how I started my touring career with them.
We sort of jumped right into it.
When [D] I turned 18, we flew to Hawaii, and I think we toured almost every night.
I think we had a total of a week or two off in a year.
They worked so much.
So you were a seasoned veteran by the age of 19, you were like
Pretty much, I was pretty cynical by that time.
I'd seen it all.
[N] My first guitar was a 63 Harmony Rocket that Lightnin' Hopkins had given to Mark Benno.
My dad inherited it.
It was the guitar that always was sort of the house guitar that everybody would come
over and they would play.
And I think on my 14th birthday, my dad gave it to me as a birthday present.
But it was Lightnin''s guitar, so that was pretty cool.
Some crazy mojo in your hands then.
Yeah.
You are left-handed, [Em] and yet you play a right-handed guitar strung upside down, is that correct?
No, I'm actually right-handed, but I play a guitar left-handed upside down.
Wow, okay.
How did that happen?
You know, I actually didn't even think about it.
When I picked up a guitar, that Harmony Rocket, I picked it up and I just started messing
with it because it just felt comfortable to hold it that way.
Which I never understood because if you bat right-handed, [G] you bat this way.
And you're using your right hands.
You bend the high strings, you're pulling down, right?
Yeah, I pull down on the strings.
When I start talking about it that way, it sounds sort of Spinal Tap-ish.
Right.
I pull down rather than pushing up.
You get more sustain that way.
I get people coming up to me all the time, even guitar players, saying that I just have
a sound that nobody else has.
There aren't that many left-handed upside down guitar players, and all the ones that
I've ever known, they all have a really unique sound.
So it must have something to do with it.
Albert King, Otis Rush, Bobby Womack, they're all guitar players that just sounded a little off.
Recently I did get a guitar and it was left-handed.
I just kept it that way just to see what I could do, what I couldn't do on it.
It started to come around pretty quickly for me.
I could do a lot of rhythm stuff that I'd always wanted to be able to do, but it just
never sounded right to me.
It made me feel like I could play James Brown or Sly Stone for the first time, and it sounded right.
And maybe that's because I was doing down strokes, and most of the stuff is here, doing
the [A] chords, rather than being up here where I have to stretch.
[G#]
It's just really hard to do something like that, whereas [Gm] if I was doing
[E]
[G] I mean, it sounds like crap here, but it worked in my house.
Right, okay.
Cool.
[D] [E] [E] [G]
[E] [F#]
[B] [C] [E]
[D] [E]
[G] [E]
Singer-songwriter Doyle Bramhall II may have three great solo albums under his belt, but
he's also made quite a name for himself playing guitar with music legends like Eric Clapton,
Roger Waters, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as his own band, the Archangels.
In part one of our interview, Doyle talked to host Dave Levita about his start in the
business and his unusual upside-down left-handed [A] playing.
[C#]
When did you first start playing guitar?
When I was six years old, [N] I started playing drums because my father played drums.
My whole family sort of consisted of drummers, so I switched to bass at 11, and then we had
a shortage of guitar players around the time I turned 13, and so I just decided to play
guitar just for that reason.
Shortly after is when Stevie Ray Vaughan sort of came back around.
Sorry to interrupt, came back around from?
Well, my dad was playing with Stevie and bands, Stevie Vaughan and Jimmy Vaughan, probably
late 60s, early 70s, and then Stevie sort of went off on his own for a while, but he
started to come back around when I was 13, so I got a taste of that kind of [G] guitar playing,
which nobody else was doing at the time.
So that's sort of why I started playing guitar, just being around musicians my whole life.
And it wasn't that long afterwards that you were playing with him, right?
Yeah, it was about a year later when I
When you were 14?
Yeah.
Wow.
I took the stage with Stevie the first time.
I mean, I was a really old friend of his.
My dad was a really old friend of his, and I think he liked to sort of egg me on, so
when I was just turning 15, I just went to see a show and was backstage, and he was like,
you want to sit in tonight?
So I just started playing, and he was like, no, no, get up, you're bad, you've got to get up.
And so when he introduced me, it was
I remember hearing, one of the best guitar players I've ever heard. Yeah.
And then I got up, and I think, I broke like every string on the guitar, I couldn't even play.
When I turned 17, I got a call from Jimmy Vaughn saying that he needed a second guitar
player in the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Cool.
And that's how I started my touring career with them.
We sort of jumped right into it.
When [D] I turned 18, we flew to Hawaii, and I think we toured almost every night.
I think we had a total of a week or two off in a year.
They worked so much.
So you were a seasoned veteran by the age of 19, you were like
Pretty much, I was pretty cynical by that time.
I'd seen it all.
[N] My first guitar was a 63 Harmony Rocket that Lightnin' Hopkins had given to Mark Benno.
My dad inherited it.
It was the guitar that always was sort of the house guitar that everybody would come
over and they would play.
And I think on my 14th birthday, my dad gave it to me as a birthday present.
But it was Lightnin''s guitar, so that was pretty cool.
Some crazy mojo in your hands then.
Yeah.
You are left-handed, [Em] and yet you play a right-handed guitar strung upside down, is that correct?
No, I'm actually right-handed, but I play a guitar left-handed upside down.
Wow, okay.
How did that happen?
You know, I actually didn't even think about it.
When I picked up a guitar, that Harmony Rocket, I picked it up and I just started messing
with it because it just felt comfortable to hold it that way.
Which I never understood because if you bat right-handed, [G] you bat this way.
And you're using your right hands.
You bend the high strings, you're pulling down, right?
Yeah, I pull down on the strings.
When I start talking about it that way, it sounds sort of Spinal Tap-ish.
Right.
I pull down rather than pushing up.
You get more sustain that way.
I get people coming up to me all the time, even guitar players, saying that I just have
a sound that nobody else has.
There aren't that many left-handed upside down guitar players, and all the ones that
I've ever known, they all have a really unique sound.
So it must have something to do with it.
Albert King, Otis Rush, Bobby Womack, they're all guitar players that just sounded a little off.
Recently I did get a guitar and it was left-handed.
I just kept it that way just to see what I could do, what I couldn't do on it.
It started to come around pretty quickly for me.
I could do a lot of rhythm stuff that I'd always wanted to be able to do, but it just
never sounded right to me.
It made me feel like I could play James Brown or Sly Stone for the first time, and it sounded right.
And maybe that's because I was doing down strokes, and most of the stuff is here, doing
the [A] chords, rather than being up here where I have to stretch.
[G#]
It's just really hard to do something like that, whereas [Gm] if I was doing
[E]
[G] I mean, it sounds like crap here, but it worked in my house.
Right, okay.
Cool.
[D] [E] [E] [G]
[E] [F#]
[B] [C] [E]
Key:
E
G
A
D
C#
E
G
A
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ Singer-songwriter Doyle Bramhall II may have three great solo albums under his belt, but
he's also made quite a name for himself playing guitar with music legends like Eric Clapton,
Roger Waters, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as his own band, the Archangels.
In part one of our interview, Doyle talked to host Dave Levita about his start in the
business and his unusual upside-down left-handed [A] playing.
_ _ [C#] _
When did you first start playing guitar?
When I was six years old, [N] I started playing drums because my father played drums.
My whole family sort of consisted of drummers, so I switched to bass at 11, and then we had
a shortage of guitar players around the time I turned 13, _ and so I just decided to play
guitar just for that reason.
Shortly after is when Stevie Ray Vaughan sort of came back around.
_ Sorry to interrupt, came back around from?
Well, my dad was playing with Stevie and bands, Stevie Vaughan and Jimmy Vaughan, probably
late 60s, early 70s, and then Stevie sort of went off on his own for a while, but he
started to come back around when I was 13, so I got a taste of that kind of [G] guitar playing,
which nobody else was doing at the time.
_ So that's sort of why I started playing guitar, just being around musicians my whole life.
And it wasn't that long afterwards that you were playing with him, right?
Yeah, it was about a year later when I_
When you were 14?
Yeah.
Wow.
I took the stage with Stevie the first time.
I mean, I was a really old friend of his.
My dad was a really old friend of his, and I think he liked to sort of egg me on, so
when I was just turning 15, _ _ I just went to see a show and was backstage, and he was like,
you want to sit in tonight?
So I just started playing, and he was like, no, no, get up, you're bad, you've got to get up.
And so when he introduced me, it was_
I remember hearing, _ one of the best guitar players I've ever heard. Yeah.
And then I got up, and I think, I broke like every string on the guitar, I couldn't even play.
_ When I turned 17, I got a call from Jimmy Vaughn saying that he needed a second guitar
player in the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Cool.
And that's how I started my touring career with them.
We sort of jumped right into it.
When _ [D] I turned 18, we flew to Hawaii, and I think we toured almost every night.
I think we had a total of a week or two off in a year.
They worked so much.
So you were a seasoned veteran by the age of 19, you were like_
Pretty much, I was pretty cynical by that time.
I'd seen it all. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] My first guitar was a 63 Harmony Rocket that Lightnin' Hopkins had given to Mark Benno.
My dad inherited it.
It was the guitar that always was sort of the house guitar that everybody would come
over and they would play.
And I think on my 14th birthday, my dad gave it to me as a birthday present.
But it was Lightnin''s guitar, so that was pretty cool.
Some crazy mojo in your hands then.
Yeah. _ _
_ _ _ You are left-handed, [Em] and yet you play a right-handed guitar strung upside down, is that correct?
No, I'm actually right-handed, but I play a guitar left-handed upside down.
Wow, okay.
How did that happen?
You know, I actually didn't even think about it.
When I picked up a guitar, that Harmony Rocket, I picked it up and I just started messing
with it because it just felt comfortable to hold it that way.
Which I never understood because if you bat right-handed, [G] you bat this way.
And you're using your right hands.
You bend the high strings, you're pulling down, right?
Yeah, I pull down on the strings. _ _ _
When I start talking about it that way, it sounds sort of Spinal Tap-ish.
Right.
I pull down rather than pushing up.
You get more sustain that way.
I get people coming up to me all the time, even guitar players, saying that I just have
a sound that nobody else has.
There aren't that many left-handed upside down guitar players, and all the ones that
I've ever known, they all have a really unique sound.
So it must have something to do with it.
Albert King, Otis Rush, Bobby Womack, they're all guitar players that just sounded a little off.
Recently I did get a guitar and it was left-handed.
I just kept it that way just to see what I could do, what I couldn't do on it.
It started to come around pretty quickly for me.
I could do a lot of rhythm stuff that I'd always wanted to be able to do, but it just
never sounded right to me.
It made me feel like I could play James Brown or Sly Stone for the first time, and it sounded right.
And maybe that's because I was doing down strokes, and most of the stuff is here, doing
the [A] chords, rather than being up here where I have to stretch.
_ _ [G#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's just really hard to do something like that, whereas [Gm] if I was doing_
[E] _ _ _
[G] _ I mean, it sounds like crap here, but it worked in my house.
Right, okay.
Cool.
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ [E] _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ Singer-songwriter Doyle Bramhall II may have three great solo albums under his belt, but
he's also made quite a name for himself playing guitar with music legends like Eric Clapton,
Roger Waters, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as his own band, the Archangels.
In part one of our interview, Doyle talked to host Dave Levita about his start in the
business and his unusual upside-down left-handed [A] playing.
_ _ [C#] _
When did you first start playing guitar?
When I was six years old, [N] I started playing drums because my father played drums.
My whole family sort of consisted of drummers, so I switched to bass at 11, and then we had
a shortage of guitar players around the time I turned 13, _ and so I just decided to play
guitar just for that reason.
Shortly after is when Stevie Ray Vaughan sort of came back around.
_ Sorry to interrupt, came back around from?
Well, my dad was playing with Stevie and bands, Stevie Vaughan and Jimmy Vaughan, probably
late 60s, early 70s, and then Stevie sort of went off on his own for a while, but he
started to come back around when I was 13, so I got a taste of that kind of [G] guitar playing,
which nobody else was doing at the time.
_ So that's sort of why I started playing guitar, just being around musicians my whole life.
And it wasn't that long afterwards that you were playing with him, right?
Yeah, it was about a year later when I_
When you were 14?
Yeah.
Wow.
I took the stage with Stevie the first time.
I mean, I was a really old friend of his.
My dad was a really old friend of his, and I think he liked to sort of egg me on, so
when I was just turning 15, _ _ I just went to see a show and was backstage, and he was like,
you want to sit in tonight?
So I just started playing, and he was like, no, no, get up, you're bad, you've got to get up.
And so when he introduced me, it was_
I remember hearing, _ one of the best guitar players I've ever heard. Yeah.
And then I got up, and I think, I broke like every string on the guitar, I couldn't even play.
_ When I turned 17, I got a call from Jimmy Vaughn saying that he needed a second guitar
player in the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Cool.
And that's how I started my touring career with them.
We sort of jumped right into it.
When _ [D] I turned 18, we flew to Hawaii, and I think we toured almost every night.
I think we had a total of a week or two off in a year.
They worked so much.
So you were a seasoned veteran by the age of 19, you were like_
Pretty much, I was pretty cynical by that time.
I'd seen it all. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] My first guitar was a 63 Harmony Rocket that Lightnin' Hopkins had given to Mark Benno.
My dad inherited it.
It was the guitar that always was sort of the house guitar that everybody would come
over and they would play.
And I think on my 14th birthday, my dad gave it to me as a birthday present.
But it was Lightnin''s guitar, so that was pretty cool.
Some crazy mojo in your hands then.
Yeah. _ _
_ _ _ You are left-handed, [Em] and yet you play a right-handed guitar strung upside down, is that correct?
No, I'm actually right-handed, but I play a guitar left-handed upside down.
Wow, okay.
How did that happen?
You know, I actually didn't even think about it.
When I picked up a guitar, that Harmony Rocket, I picked it up and I just started messing
with it because it just felt comfortable to hold it that way.
Which I never understood because if you bat right-handed, [G] you bat this way.
And you're using your right hands.
You bend the high strings, you're pulling down, right?
Yeah, I pull down on the strings. _ _ _
When I start talking about it that way, it sounds sort of Spinal Tap-ish.
Right.
I pull down rather than pushing up.
You get more sustain that way.
I get people coming up to me all the time, even guitar players, saying that I just have
a sound that nobody else has.
There aren't that many left-handed upside down guitar players, and all the ones that
I've ever known, they all have a really unique sound.
So it must have something to do with it.
Albert King, Otis Rush, Bobby Womack, they're all guitar players that just sounded a little off.
Recently I did get a guitar and it was left-handed.
I just kept it that way just to see what I could do, what I couldn't do on it.
It started to come around pretty quickly for me.
I could do a lot of rhythm stuff that I'd always wanted to be able to do, but it just
never sounded right to me.
It made me feel like I could play James Brown or Sly Stone for the first time, and it sounded right.
And maybe that's because I was doing down strokes, and most of the stuff is here, doing
the [A] chords, rather than being up here where I have to stretch.
_ _ [G#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's just really hard to do something like that, whereas [Gm] if I was doing_
[E] _ _ _
[G] _ I mean, it sounds like crap here, but it worked in my house.
Right, okay.
Cool.
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ [E] _ _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _