Chords for Small Town Saturday Night - Guitar Lesson and Tutorial - Hal Ketchum

_ _ Small Town Saturday Night is a country classic and it was a big hit for Hal Ketchum.
It was written by Pat Alger and Hank DeVito.
The song's in the key of A flat, so we'll capo up to the first fret on both guitars so we can play key of G chords.
There's nothing too difficult going on with the acoustic guitar,
and there's a number of recognizable licks and a great country guitar solo that we'll learn on the electric. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _
On a dead end [Ab] road, it's a hurry song, [Eb] where we [Fm] won't go. _ _ _ _
We [Db] gonna [Ab] holler at the [Eb] moon, shoot [Ab] out the [Db] lighties.
[Ab] Small [Eb] Town Saturday [Ab] Night [Db] is _ [Ab] a [Eb] get along [Ab] for the ride. _ _ _ _
[Db] Got a six pack of beer and a bottle of wine, [Ab] gotta be bad [Eb] just to have a [Fm] good _ time.
_ _ They [Db] gonna [Ab] holler at the [Eb] moon, shoot [Ab] out the [Db] lighties.
[Ab] Small Town _ [Eb] Saturday [Ab] Night.
_ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ Rock and roll lives in the world, [Db] ain't no reason [Ab] for them to settle for the metal,
[Eb] for they [Fm] can't change their mind.
_ _ _ [Db] They gonna [Ab] holler at the [Eb] moon, shoot [Ab] out the [Db] lighties.
[Ab] Small [Eb] Town Saturday [Ab] Night.
[Db] Yeah, they gonna holler [Ab] at the [Eb] moon, shoot [Fm] out the _ _ lighties.
[Ab] Let's start by going over the chords that we'll use, then we'll walk through each section in order.
So we're gonna start with the first chord, which is a G chord.
There's a lot of ways to play a G chord.
A lot of times on this site, we play it like this. _ _
In this song, I'm gonna recommend that you play it either like this _ _ or like this.
I'm gonna play it like this, which [C] is [Ab] ring finger, third fret of the low E string,
I'm muting the [Eb] A string, open [Ab] D string, open G string, open B string,
pinky finger _ on the third fret of the high E string.
You can also add your middle finger into the second fret of A if you'd like, _ _ _ _ but I'm not gonna do that.
The reason we're gonna play it like this is because this song [Db] uses a standard C chord, a regular old C chord.
_ _ And there's fast transitions between the C and the G.
_ [Ab] _
_ And when we play a G like this, it's [Db] very easy to transition [Ab] over to the C [Db] chord.
_ [Ab] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] The other chords we're gonna need are a standard D chord and then a [Fm] standard E minor.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ So the intro _ uses just the C, the G, and the D, and it uses all down strokes.
It goes like this.
[Db] Down, [Ab] down, down, [Eb] down, down, [Ab] down, down, down, [Db] down, down, [Ab] _ down, [Eb] down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down.
And [Ab] then the band kicks in.
So one more time.
So for example, in the first verse, let's just go through that.
We're gonna start when the vocals come in.
_ _ Down, down, up, up, down, to a D [Eb] chord, down, down, back to [Ab] the G.
Down, up, up, down, down, down, up, up, down.
Then we're gonna go to the [Db] C.
Down, [Ab] down, down, down, [Eb] down, [Ab] down, down, down, up, up, down, down, down, up.
One, [Db] two, three, go. _
[Ab] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Db] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ Verse one.
All _ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] right, to start with the electric guitar, we need to get our guitar into drop D tuning. _
So to play D chord, it sounds like this.
It's all standard tuning except for this low E string, which is down tuned one whole step _ to a D note.
So it sounds like this. _ _ _ _ _
Once you've got your guitar sounding like this in drop D tuning, [Db] we're gonna put a capo on the first fret. _
[G] We need to do this so that we can make that lick sound right and the solo sound right.
All right, there's a lot of different sections we're gonna learn on the lead guitar, but they're all pretty short.
So we're just gonna go through each one in order as we experience them in the song.
We'll talk through each one kind of note by note, and then we'll turn on the metronome, and we'll play through everything at full tempo.
_ So the acoustic guitar starts the song by itself for the intro.
Then when the band kicks in, we do this riff to start the song.
_ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] And then we're into the first verse.
So all we're doing, we've got our ring finger four frets above.
All right, so let's take a look at this solo note by note.
Like I said, this starts the same way as a lot of these licks have started this song.
We're gonna start on the fourth fret of low E.
Down, [Ab] hammer, down, up, down, up, down, [G] up, down, [Ab] hammer, down, up, down.
Then we move up to the open [Bb] A string.
_ [C] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [C] _ _
[Eb] _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _ _ [Ab] _
We've already learned that in another riff.
[Bb] Now we'll continue through the solo.
It gets a little bit different.
_ [C] _ _
[Db] _ _ [C] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
_ [Cm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ Then we go up to the fifth fret of the A string.
_ _ _ _ [Gb] _
[G] Third, hammer, [Eb] fifth fret of A, [Gb] third fret, [G] hammer.
_ One, two, three, go.
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Eb] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [Db] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _