Saturday, August 28, 2010

Passion

This one's to honor the greatest JJ Cale cover band I know of: TALK TO THE CAT!  Please go their site and check their music (Oh, man the the stone JJ groove they have for Right down here!):  http://talktothecat.nl/Intro.php ...And book them for gig!

If Talk to the cat had not recorded this small gem, I would never have realized how good a song it is. And I still think of their version first, not the original. Although Number 10 is the first JJ album I bought the day it hit the shelves, I never liked it, it's also the most disappointing record of his, due to the sound. I wish he re-recorded all of it!

Anyway, I copped this off the Talk to the cat version:

The chords are:
Verse:
Gm D
Gm C

Chorus ("Now she's gone... the passion ... still lies in me")
Gm Bb
C D
Gm D

For their CD, the singer and main guitarist of this band played a Gibson Standard USA 1990 and through a Rivera Jake Studio and the other guitarist played a (rosewood fingerboard) Telecaster. Not that anybody cares, but I asked about it once, as I was interested about the tone they got. You can see their gear listing on the site, too.

...and while all you guys are at it, do check the Dutch JJ fan site too: http://www.jjcale.nl/index.html

...and go listen sneak preview's of new Eric Clapton album, with two JJ songs and JJ himself on it: 'Eric Clapton' Sounds good, almost as good as Talk to the cat! :)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Old Man And Me

Haven't got much on this, but just to mark a celebration here:
If I have my stats right, I started of with a list of 69 * 2 = 138 JJ songs to tab... and now have tabbed (to some extent) exactly half of them!

Anyway: Old man and me.

This just stays on Bb chord with alternating bass (Bb and F alternating). You can take a Bb barre chord at first or sixth fret and alternate between the 6th and fifth strings (with strums in between)

The solo bit at around 1min into the song is Bb major pentatonic, I think, and starts approximately like this:
---1~----------
-3-------------
------5-3-0-3--
---------------
---------------
---------------

Former Me

This is a great track! He just keeps putting out great stuff, I say!


The chords:


The main part is: 
Bm F# ...6 times, then the ending:
Bm A Bm


the "Those days..." bridge is:
G A Bm.... 3 times, then the ending:
A G F#


And don't forget the great youtube cover by Harry de Visser.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Roll on mama

Number 10 is the record I never listen to... just don't like the sound of it at all. So I'll skip the screechy solos...


The chords are:
Fm Bb Ab again again and again...
except for the "chorus" bit that goes:

I gotta [Ab]roll on, Mama
[G]Things been movin' too [F]slow

Starbound

This is in C, and I don't hear any changes, just C all the way through.  (SEE COMMENTS FOR SUGGESTION THAT IT'S MORE LIKELY FMAJ7 CMAJ7)


This is the intro (C major pentatonic):
-8p5---5~--8p5-8-10--10-12-12---8p5---5~-8-5--5-----
-----8-----------------------------8------------8-8--
-----------------------------------------------------


-8p5---5~---12p10p8-10'-12-12----10-12-12-
-----8------------------------------------
------------------------------------------

Hard Times

The chords for this minor masterpiece are:
F Ab Bb for ever in a loop. One bar of F, half a bar of Ab and half a bar of Bb. Repeat.

So it's like:
[F]Hard times[Ab][Bb]

The intro is something like (without the more quiet scratching in between):
---1-4-1--1--4-4-6--1---4-4-4-4-6--1---
-1--------1--4-4-6--1---4-4-4-4-6--1---
----------2--5-5-7--2---5-5-5-5-7--2---
----------3--6-6-8--3---6-6-6-6-8--3---

-----
-----

So that's just the 4 note lick from Fm pentatonic, plus strumming the same chords as the whole song is revolving around. 

Monday, August 16, 2010

"Who knew"

So another quick one here...

The main part chords are a basic blues progression (add sevenths according to your taste) in C:
C C C C
F F C C
G G C C

The bridge is basically just:
Eb Eb C C for most of it, like 4 times, I think...
...and then fret by fret down towards to C from Eb... Eb, D, C#... for the end part of it.

There might some else in there, but those two progressions are the core of things happening...

Losers

Oh well, one of the my least favorite JJ tunes ever ever.


The main part is a 8 bar blues in C:
CCFF
CGCC

And the bridge thingy ("Came in this morning" etc):
FCGC
FCGC

ever. Did I already say that?

If You Leave Her

This, to me, is just Gm all the way through, except this at the end parts of progression:



I can't [C] see her [Bb]walking with [Gm]you

Friday, August 13, 2010

It's Good To Be In Austin

I had to buy the Rewind album twice, to get this song. It's a good country number, though. :)

The basic part is:
E A E ...x 3
B E

The bridge is basically just 
C#m E ...x 3
F#m B7.

Or so I hear, what about you? :D

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Trouble In The City


This might be slightly fuzzy, 
as I am trying to cop this out very quietly in the dark of night on my acoustic...

[Bm]Heard the one about your woman
Lord, she's been messing 'round
[E]She's been stepping out on the street
Lord, she's been hanging out[Bm]
[E]Ain't nobody had her this week, 
[Bm]boy it [A]won't take [E]long
[Bm]Lord, lord, there's trouble in the city
Lord, lord, there's trouble in the city
Lord, lord, there's trouble in the city
And I [D]hope it won't [A]mess with [Bm]me
The guitar fills appear to be from B minor pentatonic scale.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Rose In The Garden

Lovely sweet song this is. Love the piano and the acoustic guitar solo.

The chords spell a simple country progression:

[D]I'll find my way back [G]to the rose in the [D]garden
[D]I'll find my way [A]back to her sweet [D]arms

The solo picks off something like:
-------------------
-----7h8p7---------
---7-------7-4-----
-7-------------7---
-----------------5-
-------------------
which is based around the D chord (A barre shaped one in my tab), or D major pentatonic, if you wish. 

It's hard to tell

This one goes like this for the main "It's hard to tell" part:
Am G Am
Am G Am
etc...

Then the other part that is played in between and for  "when you face the face" etc, is:
C D
C Bb.


Or so I hear it, any comments welcome. :)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Mojo

Yeah it isn't his own song, so normally I'd shy away... plus it's a straight ahead 12 bar blues. So what's the point?  I dig it, and I want to cover all his songs in my blog... :D

so here's the main riff for this 12 bar blues in E:
---------------------
---------------------
---------------------
-2-------------------
---2--2-4-5--5-4-5-2-
---------------------

It's the same but one string up for the IV chord. For the last four bars there's just strumming for V and IV chords and then a basic E blues turnaround that starts with the open D7 chord picked two frets up, then moving that fret by fret down...

No time for solo now...

Love Has Been Gone

This one's in the key of Bb.

[Bb]Love has been gone, [Eb]gone so long there's nothing [Bb]new


I say our love has been gone, [Eb]gone so long there's nothing [Bb]new
How does it [Gm]feel
Not too [Bb]good
It ain't [Gm]real but it's [Bb]understood

intro begins like this:
E:-----------------------------------
B:-6-8-9~--8-9-8-9s11--9-8-9~--9-8-6-
G:-----------------------------------

x:-----------------------------------

x:-----------------------------------

x:-----------------------------------


E:-------------6----------------------

B:-------------6--9-8-6~--------------
G:-8p6--------------------------------
D:-----8--8---------------------------

A:----------8-------------------------

x:------------------------------------

So that looks like Bb minor pentatonic... plus the sixth...

Monday, August 9, 2010

Everything Will Be Alright

The progression for this beautiful small tune is:
F Bb F Bb F
Ab G F# F

So basically for the verse it's going back and forth between F and Bb (The I and IV chords in key of F), and then the chorus is going down from Ab a fret at time, until back to F chord.

Disadvantage

Yet another 12 bar blues here... in E. The only difference is that in bars 9 and 10 there's half a bar of B followed by half a bar of A.So, it's like this:
EEEE EEEE EEEE EEEE
AAAA AAAA EEEE EEEE
BBAA BBAA EEEE EEEE

In the intro there's some play around the 2nd fret G string and open G string. Then some other E minor pentatonic stuff...

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Lawdy mama

The heat is on, and I am as lazy as ever... so I'll just state this very quickly:

This song is 12 bar blues in E, with a quick change IV in the second bar.

Has a nice groove riff, which I am not able to get down pat, so I'll just let it be for now. Maybe later...

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sho-Biz Blues

Well the chords for the verse are these in a loop for forever:
C Bb F C

and for the bridge the two back and forth:
Bb C

So that's that.

River runs deep

Just read that Eric Clapton's new album has this track, so I thought I'll have a look on the original...

It's just Am and D all the way through. Or so I hear it!

The licks he plays are A minor pentatonic... some beautiful pre-bends there on the 8th fret. Too lazy to write the licks down now, but I play the in the 1st and second minor pentatonic boxes, so at five through to 10th fret.

B:------------
G:---5-7-5--
D:-7-------7-
A:-----------

I wonder if that was any help to anybody now. :D

Lonesome train

This to me is just a 12 bar blues in E simplified... as I don't hear a IV chord...

E/E/E/E
E/E/E/E
B/B/E/E

So all E, except:

Is it headed [B]up, is it headed [E]down
Oh well, could be that there's more happening, 
but the "Number 10" just doesn't inspire me to do more than that...

Wish I Had Not Said That

Lovely sweet country tiddy! Oh well, I just love the Shades album...

...picking the C major chord for intro riff:
---------------
------------(1)-
---0-----------
-----2-0-------
-3-------3-----
---------------

[C]You don't come here too often
You make my day when you come around
You know I love you something awful
You're a diamond I have found ([(C][G])
[F]Wish I had not said that, [C]baby
[F]If I could only close you [C]out of my [G]mind

Of course imitating the riff while strumming works well as well...
I just seem to be hammering on to the second fret on the D string once every bar... and alternating between C and G in the bass of the C chord (to "emulate bass guitar").

For going from the verse to chorus, there's this move from C to F:
-----1-
-----1-
-----2-
-----3- 
-3---3-
---3-1-

So C, G, F... I guess you could play all of those as chords too, so I put that in round brackets above..