Chords for Workin' Man Blues - Guitar Lesson and Tutorial - Merle Haggard

_ Working Man Blues was a big hit for country singer Merle Haggard, who also wrote the song.
There's really not a lot going on with the acoustic guitar, it's kind of in the background,
and it uses three chords in one chord progression that repeats over and over.
The real fun in Working Man Blues is in the lead guitar part, where we'll have a lot of chicken picking to do,
and a really authentically country guitar solo.
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ [A] _
[G] _ [D] _ [Eb] _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ [Am] _ [Eb] _ [E] _ _ _ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ Working _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [D] _ [A] _
Man Blues
is an example of a 12 bar blues progression.
To get through this whole song, we just need
to know three chords.
We're going to start with an A chord.
_ I'm going to play an A chord
like this.
_ Open, second fret, second fret, second fret, open high E string.
Just because
my fingers fit well on that one.
Some people like to play it like that.
You could even
just play a bar chord if you wanted.
So just play whatever A you're comfortable with.
It
doesn't really matter which one you pick.
I'm going to play this kind. _
And then the
next one is a standard [D] D chord. _ _ _ _
And then we have a standard [E] E chord. _ _
_ And those are
the three chords that we need.
The strum pattern is going to start with a downstroke
[A] that's just on these bottom two strings.
And then the next downstroke is going to kind
of aim towards the top strings.
And that's going to go over and over again.
Down, down,
down, down.
Low strings, high strings, low strings, high strings, low, high, low, high,
low, high, low.
So we're going to go through a verse nice and slow using that strum pattern.
Then we'll turn on the metronome and play it at full speed.
We're going to start here
on the A chord.
_ _ _ _ Stay on the A for a second time, _ and a third time, _ _ _ and a fourth time.
Now we'll move to a [D] D chord.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
And now back to [A] an A. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Now we'll go to an [E] E. _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ [A] And then for
that last D chord we're just going to do one downstroke and mute it.
Then we'll go back
to strumming the A chord for the end of each verse. _ _
One, two, three, go. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Alright, there's
a lot of different versions of this song out there, and the guitar is played a little
bit differently on each one.
So this is going to be based [N] on what I think would be kind
of the most popular studio recorded version that's out there, and this is how I would
play it live.
So we're just going to go through every different song section in this tutorial
except for the solo, which we'll learn in the next one.
So let's start with the introduction.
The introduction starts on the and of three, and it would sound like this.
One, two, [Em] three.
_ [A] _ [G] _ [D] _ [Ebm] _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _ [Am] _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
And then we start the verses.
So let's go nice and slow through that.
Again, we're starting
on the and of three.
One, two, three.
[E]
Slide up from five to seven on the A string.
Then
with our finger on our right hand we're going to pick the fifth fret of D, [G] and then a ghost
note on the A string with our ring finger.
So. _
_ [A] And then we'll roll our ring finger down
to the seventh fret of the D string.
We'll hit that with our finger on our right hand.
[G] Another ghost note on the A string.
Back to the fifth fret of D. _ _
And then we're going
to move our ring finger down to the _ _ fifth fret of A.
Bend [D] that up.
_ [Eb]
A total of four [Ab] picks.
So [D] start that one over.
[Eb] One, two, three, four.
[D] Back down.
And then [G] another pick on the third
fret with a little [C] half bend.
_ _ And then we're into that little chicken [A] picking section.
_ [D] _ [Am] _ [D] _
So one more time on that lick, nice and slow.
One, two, three.
[Em] _ _ [A] _ [G] _ [D] _ _ [Eb] _
[D] _ [C] _ _ [A] And then we get to the chicken
picking section of the introduction, which looks like this. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] Alright, this is a great
classic country guitar solo that we're going to learn today for Working Man Blues.
I'd
really encourage you to learn the verse progression before you dive into the solo, because a lot
of the licks, especially towards the end, are kind of very similar or sometimes exactly
the same as the licks that we've already learned in the verse.
So it'll make it a lot easier
to learn this solo if you've already kind of gone over that tutorial. _
So let's start
by me playing through the solo, nice and slow but in tempo.
Then we'll go through it note
by note, and then we'll play it at full speed along with the metronome.
Here's how it sounds.
_ _ [E] _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ [D] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ [Am] _ [G] _ [Eb] _ [Em] _ _ _
[Gb] One, _ _ _ two, three.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _
[A] _ [D] _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [D] _