Screaming and Crying Instruction (Part 1)
Free download
Fingerstyle Country-Blues Lesson
Song Info
Genre
Charts
Peak #136
Peak in subgenre #21
Author
Traditional
Uploaded
June 12, 2008
Track Files
MP3
MP3 9.3 MB • 128 kbps • 10:10
Story behind the song
I was asked by someone to help work out this tune and so I did. It's the first of two d/'s explaining how to play the tune and style in which it is done.
Lyrics
(To correct format, copy to Notepad using Courier New Regular 10-Font.)
SCREAMIN' AND CRYIN' BLUES
(Prob. Traditional, first recorded by Blind Boy Fuller 1946;
also recordeded by John Jackson, Muddy Waters; Bowling Green
John Cephas and others)
These six tab-lines are the intro tabbed note-for-note (or extremely close)
to John's recording of the tune recorded in 1965 and re-masterd for the album
CD "Country Blues and Ditties" in 1999. This intro probably contains virtually
all the licks, lines, walks and runs John used in the tune, with slight variations,
conbinations and sequences. It's also quite similar to Blind Boy Fuller's version.
After you've gone over this below a little bit so as to get a sort of a handle on
them, forget learning it note-for-note. I've probably watched John play this tune
more than a hundred times and it was never played exactly the same way twice. He
just drew on his collected "bag of tricks" that fit the tune, most contained in
the intro, and applied them and used them as he saw fit at that particular time
he played it.
Another thing about his playing style (found in a number of very old-time bluesmen
who almost always played solo) was his manipulation of (or outright disregard for!)
the time signiture of the tune. The tune might be a "straight" 12-bar blues, but
the structure was merely a guide-line for making changes with the lyrics. At any
given time he might play it as a... 13-bar, or an 11 1/2-bar, or whatever, and
that might change with each verse as he played it. He would use the space between
the chord-changes to punctuate the change as he saw fit. As much (or as little)
time as it took for him to "say what he wanted to say" with his guitar, leading
from one chord of the progression into the next. It's the style of the solo-artist
from the days before blues were played in a combo or band thus requiring a stricter
12-bar framework for the various musicians to be able to work together more easily.
I'll put an approximate time-location for each line in the thirty second intro as
well as the general chord G, C or D that he was working out of. (His recording is
actually in the key of Gb, but John played it "as if" in the key of G. Either his
guitar happened to be down-tuned a half-step, which he did occasionally, or the
tune was slowed down slightly during the digital re-mastering for the CD.)
E)-----0--3--3-3-3-/(and slide, ending on 7)--3--1--0------------------(0:0-0:05)
B}--3-------------------------------------------------3--1-------------(out of G)
G)----------------------------------------------------------3--0----0-----------
D)----------------------------------------------------------------2-------------
A)------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E)------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E)------------------------------------------------------1--------(0:05-0:10.5)
B}----------3--3--3--3--3--3---2/3--2/3-----------------0--------(out of G)
G)---3/4----4--4--4--4--4--4---3/4--3/4---0--------0--------0-------------
D)----------------------------------------------3-----------0-------------
A)------------------------------------------------------------------------
E)-------------------------------------------3----------------------------
E)------------------3--3-3-3-3-3--3--3------------------(0:11-0:13)
B}------------------1--1-1-1-1-1-----1------------------(out of C)
G)----------------0------------------0----------------------------
D)--------------2--------------------2------2---------------------
A)-----1---3--3---------------------(3)--3------------------------
E)--3-------------------------------------------------------------
E)--3--1--0----------------------------------------------------3--1--(0:13.5-0:20)
B}-----------3--1----------------------------------------------0--0--(out of G)
G)-
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