Chords for Mama Tried - Merle Haggard - Guitar Lesson and Tutorial

_ Mama Tried is a great song and obviously a huge hit for Merle Haggard.
There's a lot of versions floating around with the song at this point, but we're gonna teach the album version.
There's three main guitar parts we're gonna teach.
We'll teach the low acoustic,
which is just the basic strumming using key of D chords.
Then we'll teach the electric guitar part.
We sit out a lot on the electric, but we've got a nice intro,
we've got the outro, and then a pretty cool bridge solo that we'll learn.
What we'll spend most of our time on is the finger picking part that's really up in the mix on that album recording.
It's played on the nylon string guitar.
We'll teach it on a steel string acoustic,
but it's played the exact same way if you wanted to play it on a nylon string or a classical guitar. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
[A] Mama Tried, Mama [D] Tried to raise me better, [G] but I'm a sweet [D] night, night.
That only [A] me to blame, cause [D] Mama Tried. _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ [D] _ _ Lyrical daddy rest her soul, left my mama heavy load.
She tried so very hard to fill [A] it, she's working out.
To get through this song on the low acoustic rhythm guitar, we've just got three song sections.
We've got the verse progression, the chorus progression, and the solo progression.
We've got four chords in the key of D, standard tuning, no capo.
We'll start with a D chord here, standard D chord.
_ That's open low D string, second fret of G, third fret of B, second fret of high E.
[G] Then we've got a G chord, _ which is the third [Bm] fret of low E, second fret of [D] A, open [G] D, open G, third fret of B, third fret of high E.
As always with these chords, look how easy that transition is, cause we can keep this ring finger pivoted.
Alright, let's tackle this finger picking part.
I have tabbed this out, I don't generally tab out the acoustic parts, but there's a lot going on here,
and a lot to remember.
There's these little subtle changes that happen throughout the song, so I thought it'd be good to tab it out.
_ Having said that, if you look at all the live versions you can find of this song,
and all the many different versions you can hear of him doing Mama Tried,
they never play it this exact same way twice.
I think having that feel in there is really important, especially for that album version,
it's really high in the mix, but in a live situation,
I don't think it's necessarily something you have to obsess over to play it exactly the same way twice.
It's more getting the feel in correctly, and following the chord changes like you hear them doing on the record.
But, having said all that, it can be a great exercise to try and learn something note for note,
and even memorize it, so we're gonna do that now.
This is all tabbed out right in order of how you hear it on that Jam Along video.
So, let's start with the intro, which is also the exact same way we're gonna play the outro.
Looks like this. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ Alright, so that's the intro part.
To do this, most of the song is gonna be like this, guys.
With our thumb, we're gonna be playing the D string, [G] pointer finger,
the G string, and [B] middle finger, the B string.
And you'll see us doing that same, very similar pattern, kind of the whole song.
[D] So, we've got thumb on D, open D, then on our left hand, pointer finger's gonna be on the 7th fret of G, pinky finger, 10th fret of B.
In this, just take it slow at first, and just work it up to speed,
because it's really a very simple pattern.
We're just going in order, D string, G string, B string.
We're just doing that over and over.
But then the third time, drop to the 8th fret of B, _ and then the 7th fret. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ [Eb] Alright, we just have really two sections to learn on the electric guitar for the album version of this song.
We've got the intro, which is played exactly the same as the outro, and then we've got that bridge solo.
So, let's get this intro and outro under our fingers.
Looks like this.
_ [Gb] _ _ [C] _
_ [D] _ _ _ Alright, and that's the whole thing.
So, we're up here.
[Ab] We're on the 13th fret of high E.
We're gonna bend it a half bend, so we want it to be pre-bent to that note.
_ Come down, learn that exact [Gb] same thing.
_ _ [C] Now we're in position 5, pentatonic in the key of [D] D.
_ _ And we've [B] got this riff that we'll learn next.
_ _ _ [Ab] So, we're on the D string, slide in from 7 and 9, [E] _ then 7th of G, back [B] to 9, and then back to [D] 7th of G, _ [E] _ up to [D] 9 of G, and end on that [Bb] 7th fret of G.
The [E] _ [D] _
_ last riff [Db] is a cool country riff.
Sounds like this. _
[D] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ And the solo.
2, 3, go. _
[Fm] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ [Bm] _
Mama [A] tried, Mama tried, Mama [D] tried to raise me better, but I'm [G] sleeping at [D] night.
Daddy's only [A] been late, Mama [D] tried. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _