Chords for Reverend Gary Davis - Fingerstyle Blues Guitar Lesson in C

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[F#] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] the _
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[Gm] _ _ _ _ does a style of finger picking the characterizes the playing of blind gary davis _
_ reverend davis
was one of the probably one of the best ragtime blues pickers
that ever lived
he learned from a guy called willie walker back in the nineteen twenties
_ _ when we [E] start to finger pick the blues
one of our first choices
is do we use finger picks or not
_ often i play with finger picks
and very often i play without
and the reason is that
i want to try and capture the authentic feel of the old blues guys
some played with finger picks
some played without finger picks
so it stands to reason it's logical
to try and copy exactly what the old guys did to learn how they made that particular sound _
_ now to play in the style of gary davis
i wear a plastic thumb pick
as you can see here
_ and a steel finger pick
gary davis and many of the celebrated old guitarist
just used one finger
it moved around and it was very quick and nimble
and if he needed help
then he'd bring his thumb over to the treble strings
so the thumb was very very mobile and very independent _ _ _ _
when you buy a new steel finger pick
it looks like this
it's rather straight
and needs adapting _ _
i bend the end over so that it follows the profile of my finger _
_ _ now the thumb pick is worn in this way _
_ but gary davis wore his further down the thumb which gives a lot of power
_ _ _ now the reverend played music in many different styles
in gospel blues and in ragtime
he could truly play in any particular style that he wanted to
but of course when he became a reverend
he stopped playing the devil's music and concentrated mostly on gospel singing
_ when reverend davis played in the key of C
it was often characterized by this [Fm] solid driving alternating bass beat _ _ _
_ _ _ it was made possible by the thumb pick
which makes it a very [G#] strong sound because the thumb pick is a natural amplifier
_ also the ends of the finger picks and the thumb pick
they're much narrower than a fingertip
so you can get them between the strings
in this way you can carry out certain single string runs _ _ _ _ _
[G] one of the great advantages of using finger picks
is that you can pick a single string in [Fm] succession
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using the thumb beat first and then the finger
and they alternate [N] so you can make very fast runs
_ here's a song that i wrote in the style of gary davis' gospel [Fm] music _ _ _
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as you can see it has the swinging rhythmic sound
and we can play chords using the thumb pick to strum across the strings
_ or [E] just using the thumb and the finger to alternate on one string to make some really nice creative runs
it helps to complement the music
make it sound more interesting
and it's a complement to the singing as well
often the single string runs occur after the singing
and in between the lines of the verses
_ _ i'll play part of a song called cocaine blues
in the style [G#] of reverend gary davis in the key of C
and i'll show the tablature below
and the chord structure
so you can play along if you wish
_ reverend davis can make a wonderful sound
with very few chords
and for cocaine blues
we're going to use three chords _
first of all
it's in the key of C
_ and you'll notice
that we're not going to hold down
the A string
we leave this open so the little finger on the left hand is free to move around
on the treble strings
_ similarly when we play the F chord
we don't fret down the A string again
so the little finger is free to move around _
_ on this configuration of the F chord
we move the thumb
up the fretboard to the second fret on the bass E
_ _ and finally we play the E chord and sometimes
we make an E7 chord _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ later on in this video [G#] series
we'll take a look at the styles of some great [A#] bluesmen such as big bill brunzi robert johnson
floyd counsel
and blind blake
don't forget to check out my classroom on true fire
i'll see you soon
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