Chords for Stray Cat Blues Lesson (Studio Version) - Rolling Stones

_ Hey y'all.
For some reason I don't understand.
Both the videos I have for Stray Cat Blues
have gotten a bunch of hits in the last few weeks after sort of languishing there for
a long time.
But _ there's a lot of requests for lessons on both of them.
So let's go through
the [A#] studio one, which is of the two the more difficult, mainly because of the tuning.
If
you don't know the tuning it'd be tough to get it by _ ear.
But once you get the tuning
[G#m] it's easy.
So the tuning is D, A, D, F sharp, A, [C#] D, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ or thereabouts.
[B] And it starts with this
[A#m] little thing here.
[G#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] Alright?
So that's an open A string.
And I'm going to call the strings
E, A, D, G, B, E, even though they're not tuned to that, but for the purposes of telling
[C#] you what strings they are.
Take the B and the E at the 5th fret, right?
And then hammer
on the B 5 to 7 while you're plucking, [A#m] picking both of them.
[G#] And then, _ _ _ right?
Ride that open
A string with your thumb in between.
_ _ _ _ And [A#m] then at the end it goes_
Right?
And [C#] then straight
into_
[B] _ [F#] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ _ _ [F#] _ Right?
That's for the [C#] beginning of the verses.
And that one's really easy.
It's
all with one finger.
It's open for the [B] D chord.
And it does kind of slide up to the 10th fret.
And you have to make sure you hit a full chord.
Whack that full chord after you do it.
[C#] So it [B] goes_
So [F#] _ _
_ [E] _ [C#] it goes [B] 0, _ [F#] 10, to 5, [E] to 3, [C#] _
off [B] again.
Then do the [F#] whole thing over.
_ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ [G#] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A#] _ [C#] So on that last one_
_ [E] _ [C#] _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
At 5, then you go [G#] up to 7. _ _ _ _
So that's all the way across at 7.
[F#] Then put on another typical
Keith _ chord shape, although he often, in fact most often, does this same shape in open G
_ [C] _
[D] with his fingers a string higher.
But on this [A#] one, you take the_
You're at 7 all the way
[C#] across.
And then one fret up on 8 on the G string.
[G#] And two frets up at 10 on the A string.
_ _ [G#] _ _ _ _ _
_ For that third chord, keep all those fingers [N] where they are.
And then just go one up with
your pinky on that A string.
So that it goes from_
What's that?
8 to_
What's that?
[G#] 9 to 10. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ And you notice I'm keeping my middle finger_
Once I go up to the 8th fret on that middle finger,
it stays there. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _ _
[B] _ _ [F#] _ Back to the_
_ [C#]
0, [B] _ [F#] _ 5, 5, [C#] 3, [B] 0.
_ _ [F#] _ Then you're back up to [G#] 7. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ This is when he goes,
yeah, you're a strange stray cat, that part.
So I guess that's sort of the chorus.
You're up at 10.
_ [F#]
And you're just doing boogie-woogie [E] chords on that all the way across at 10.
[G#] And then two frets up
_ on the [B] A string to 12. _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ 12. _ _ _ _ _
And then back [G#] to our old friend_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C#] _ _ [B] _ _ [F#] _ _
_ [E] _ [C#] _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ _ [C#] _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ [G#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ Wow.
_ _ To 12.
[C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[G#] _ _ _ _ _ And I think on the fade out, it [N] just_
One of the things I don't like about
that song is it just doesn't have an ending.
It just sort of evaporates.
Some people like
that jam section.
I don't.
[G#]
But it ends _ just fiddling around on that [F#] 7th fret.
_ That's the whole thing.
Now, a friend of mine [A#]
just sent me that new copy of Rolling Stone
special issue that has like the 100 greatest Stone songs in [N] it.
And Stray Cat Blues made it,
made the list.
And they say in there, yeah, Keith had just discovered the Open G tuning and he used
it for this song.
He didn't.
Rolling Stone is full of crap.
They have been from the very beginning. _
In fact, in that same magazine, they have a picture of the Stones in 81 in Kansas City,
that show that Mick Taylor joined them on stage.
They have a picture of that.
And they refer to it
as a 1975.
So if you're looking to Rolling Stone magazine for these facts, don't bother.
This is
not in Open G.
I don't think, in fact, I'm, what is that, 68?
It would have been late 68 when
Beggar's Banquet came out.
So Keith wasn't even into _ Open G at that point yet.
He was still in
the alternate tunings he was using were D and E, which are identical tunings, [G] except for the
they're a step apart.
But at any rate, it's not Open G.
It's in D, Open D.
And do it like this
and you'll be all right.
The live one's different, but we'll get to that one later.
Good luck.
[N] _