Country Blues > Weenie Campbell Main Forum
Blues in Minor/With Minor Chords
GhostRider:
Hey Ramblin' Frank:
The IV to IVm movement with a following vocal melody only occurs in one song I have heard, but it's a good one, Lonnie Johnson's Blue Ghost Blues, one of the few (only?) songs he ever did in E standard.
I love blues with prominent minor chords (in an electric vein "The Thrill is Gone" chills me to the bone). Are there any others with promenent (as opposed to passing) minor chords?
I feel like I'm sinkin' down,
Alex
waxwing:
I know of one "revisionist" usage. Dave van Ronk used it in his total rearrangement of Brownie McGee's Sportin' Life Blues in Drop D (Brownie played it in A). Dave played an F form G wrapping his thumb to get the 5th fret bass and just lifted a finger to get the minor with the barre. Sweet.
All for now.
John C.
uncle bud:
I really like DVR's version of that tune. Just great.
Johnm:
Hi all,
I thought of a song that fit this topic: Georgia Tom and Tampa Red's "If You Want Me To Love You", from the old Yazoo L-1039, "Tampa Red-Bottleneck Guitar". It's a great spooky tune in which Tampa Red, rather than tuning to a minor tuning like cross-note to accommodate the minor melody, stays in Vastapol and plays in the relative minor, so that his "do" note, instead of being the open first string, is the second string at the second fret. It seems like an approach that might bear checking out if you play slide (or even if you don't). The song is a 16-bar blues with a progression I don't recall having seen before--
| Iminor | flat VI |Imin/flatVI| I minor |
| Iminor | Iminor | V7 | V7 |
| Iminor | V7 | Iminor | flatVI/V7|
| Iminor | flatVI | Imin/flatVI | Imin |
Georgia Tom actually varies the chords a fair amount on the piano. On the first verse, he plays a V7 chord in the second bar, and about half the time he does the rocking from the I minor to the flat VI chord in the fourth and sixteenth bars, too. The changes are subtle enough that they don't throw off Red who is just playing some tremendous fills and shadowing the melody. It's a beautiful and very unusual cut.
All best,
Johnm
Stefan Wirz:
how about RGD's 'Death Don't Have No Mercy' ?! Maybe not 'blues' in a narrow sense, but surely an utmost moving song - especially when you not only hear it but see the man in action (Great God Almighty!) on the (Vestapol?) video (btw: Larry Johnson's among the listeners)
Stefan
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