Chords for Stefan Grossman teaches "Willie Mae" by Big Bill Broonzy

_ _ _ _ Okay, well now it's time to delve into the key of A.
_ Get your index finger out and fret
it on to the second fret of the top four strings, just like I'm doing here.
_ And if you have a monotonic [A] strong bass, _ _ _ just going to warp away on that fifth string.
If you dampen it hard enough, it just sounds like a very percussive thud.
_ _ _ _ Now you can get that into a shuffle beat. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] All I'm doing is putting my ring finger down on the fourth fret of the fourth string.
[A] So I have an A chord.
_ _ _ _ One, two, one, two.
_ _ And now you're playing the blues in A.
_ You're playing rhythm guitar in any rock and roll band in the country.
_ _ _ _ _ [E] One thing you can do on top of this is to play a lick. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] This is a sound that Lightning [G] Hopkins did and it's one that we investigated in the video
How to Play Blues Guitar.
Let me just go over it real quickly [Em] for you.
You have this phrase, which has your middle and your index fingers fretting the fifth
fret of the second string and the third fret of the first string.
You're going to slide up to that.
And now I have triplets.
One, two, [E] three, one, two, three, one, two, three.
[Am] _ And we're just sliding back.
_ [A] _ And then into that shuffle.
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] Now there are other guitar players that took this key of A and went to town.
Let's begin with a sort of a sketch of the way Big Bill Boonzy would play in the key
of A.
He had a tune called [E] Willie Mae and it went a little bit like this.
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _
It's called Willie.
_ As we [E] Mae there. _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] _ _ [A] _ _ [A] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ How about trying to [Bb] tackle this?
It's not so difficult.
One of the things that's very important though, you can't be afraid of playing your guitar.
Make sure that you're playing your guitar and the guitar isn't playing you.
What do I mean by that?
[D] When I'm playing this, I'm really slamming down on those strings.
_ [E] _ _ _ [A] I'm not joking [D] with my guitar. _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ The positions are pretty straightforward.
We have that long A chord.
Then _ we have [D] a D position, which has our index finger and middle finger playing the fifth
frets of the first string and the seventh fret of the second string.
[Gb] _ _ Our ring finger might go down to the eighth fret of the first string.
_ _ [D] _ _
Could also pull off on the seventh [Gb] fret of the first string. _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
And we can go into a straight [Em] first position E [E] chord.
_ And in fact, in this we're going to have a very nice lick. _
_ _ _ _ And that's just a D seventh chord put up two [Ab] frets to make it an E seven.
So we go from [E] an E _ _ seven _ _ [D] _
_ [Am] _ back into that [A] D. _
_ _ [E] _ _ [A] Now the other positions, when [Gb] I have the guitar calling out for Willie Mae, _ [Ab] Willie Mae, where are you?
[A] What was this?
This just had my index finger and middle fingers on the ninth fret of the first and the tenth
fret of the second.
Basically that's playing around an A chord.
_ We don't need the full A [Ab] chord, we just need the top two strings.
And then we take that position and we bring it up three frets.
_ _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ And then [Gb] back into that [Db] _ D _ chord on the fifth and seventh frets.
Okay, take a look at your tablature and let's see what we have.
The most important thing, as I mentioned, is that we [A] have that monotonic bass.
We don't have an alternating bass.
_ Let me just play for two seconds for you.
If I played with an alternating bass, it would sound like this.
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
Hear how different that sounds?
[Ab] That's a little bit of Monday Morning Blues by Mississippi John Hurt.
It starts to sound like a [E] happy blues.
[D] This _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] has a different feeling.
[Ab] It's assisting itself a little bit differently.
_ Okay, let's split that screen up into two parts and let's go down to tab music and check
that we have everything.
You ready?
Let's do it.
_ _ [Am] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ Again.
_ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [A] _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ [E] _
_ [A] _ _ _ Into that E.
[E] _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] Make that guitar talk now. _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _
_ _ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
Seventh [Am] to D.
_ _ [Gbm] _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ Pick up your speed.
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _
Variation.
[A] _ Talk _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
to me.
_ _ [Am] _ _ _
Yeah?
[A] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _