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Author Topic: Baby I Want You to Know  (Read 4457 times)

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Offline Dr. G

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Baby I Want You to Know
« on: October 22, 2006, 04:42:58 PM »
I learned the chord shapes for this accompaniment from Bruce Hutton (of Double Decker String Band, and Hesperus, fame) back in the '70's -- I think that he may have learned it at a workshop with John M. At any rate, I was reinspired to work on it some more when I later heard it on Jo Ann Kelly's terrific Blue Goose LP with John M., Woody Mann, and John Fahey, as well as Bo Carter's original, of course. The high (octave) "D" note at the end of the run at the end of each rep is decidedly a John Millersim.

I have long had the perspective that guitars that sound too "new" -- with warm, full tone and sustain, and light strings -- do not sound CB-ish...even if they do sound really nice. (I love my Martin guitars, but would not think of playing country blues on them.) In some kind of over-the-top reaction against that contemporary guitar sound, I recorded this number a while back on a wood-bodied resonator guitar (a Gregg Biller custom jumbo with a maple body and tricone resonators) that had what might as well have been rusty piano wire for strings, and egg-slicer action.

The result was a sound is that is tubby, funky and abrupt -- kind of an "antidote" to that lush, warm tone that I find so seductive, but just doesn't sound OLD to me.

My guess is that you'll either really like it or really hate it.

I wrote a few more lyrics to flesh out what I heard Bo Carter and JoAnn Kelly sing....

Dr. G

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: October 22, 2006, 07:56:04 PM by Slack »

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2006, 04:50:40 PM »
Oops! on the double "downloads". They're the same, of course. My bad.

Offline Slack

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2006, 07:57:50 PM »
No problem Dr. G, you can always modify your message uncheck one of the attached files and it will be removed.

I saved you the trouble here.

Offline Slack

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2006, 08:32:15 PM »
And nice job Dr. G --- I'm a big Bo Carter fan and really like your variations on some of his signture licks -- adds a nice surprise element! 

Offline Pan

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2006, 01:58:44 AM »
You put a  :D on my face!

Cheers

Pan

Offline Richard

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2006, 06:43:16 AM »
Oh, Dr G bring it on  ;) 

Wonder what that machine would sound like played lap style  :P
« Last Edit: October 23, 2006, 06:45:04 AM by Richard »
(That's enough of that. Ed)

Offline Marco

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2006, 05:20:10 AM »
Nice job, Dr. G!  :)

You play a lot of Gary Davis'  8) patterns with your right hand.

This is one of my favorites Bo Carter's songs.

Have you got the tab of this?
« Last Edit: October 25, 2006, 05:23:35 AM by Marco »

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2006, 06:02:09 AM »
Hey Marco,

Thanks for your comments.

I love RGD, and he has doubtless influenced my attack.

I remember being in some kind of strange, spontaneous, "aw, what the heck!" sort of groove (no drugs involved!) when I recorded this, and doubt that I could recreate it precisely. I do think I could tab out a reasonably decent version, however, if given a little time.

By the way, all that left-hand fingering [if you're a righty, of course] is pretty tiresome, especially when playing out, or jamming with others...so to keep this great number from disappearing from my "active" repertoire, I have more recently worked out a slightly less stressful, accompaniment version down the neck [never heard anyone else do this] that really rocks, requires less finger gymnastics, and serves as a great backdrop for vocals and other instruments (e.g., my harmonica and piano players). Perhaps I'll mp3 this second part. Do you already have the basic chord positions for Bo Carter's version (fingering hand), or is it the picking hand stuff you'd like to see? Or both?

Dr. G


Offline Marco

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2006, 06:39:33 AM »
Hi, Dr. G!!!

No problems with my right hand.
I found out the tuning (G6: DGDGBE) and the first 2 or 3 chords position.
I'm not sure about the chords of the II? part of the song.

I'm waiting for your new MP3!

Ciao!

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2006, 06:24:10 AM »
Buongiorno, Marco!

Happy to help with your left hand, and I will post an mp3 of my new, lower-register arrangement (give me a few days on this one...it's been a hugely time-intensive week at my day job!)

I think I will bring an instantaneous smile to your face when you see how easy it is with the following tip: I'm playing it in plain, ole "Spanish" (G-tuning) WITHOUT that upper "E". What the heck do you want to go and do that for? Seems to me that would make everything well-nigh impossible.

Drop that sucker down to a "D", where it belongs, and everything becomes easy. The "bridge" to the second part is played out of a so-called "long-A" shape (A-chord shape played by barreing the top 4 strings with your index finger and using your pinkie on the first string 3 frets higher).

You then simple walk with your pinkie up and down that first string (of course, you're playing the "long-A" shape at the 5th fret, so it is an absolute "C" chord)..."I'm a stranger here, don't know who to love"....

Then return to your original G inversion at the 7th fret..."Gather 'round me like the"....

Then drop the same shape to the 4th fret ..."angels above"....

Then drop down to a "standard" A-chord shape at the first fret and slide it up a couple of times to the "regular" A-chord position (actually an absolute A) ...."honey"...."baby" --KEY: DON'T PLAY THE DISSONANT OPEN 1ST STRING (D) -- YOU SIMPLY DON'T NEED IT)....

Then jump up to the 12th fret on the 1st string to start your tag run down...I find that it is easier to hit most the notes on that run (after the first three descending ones [12th fret, 11th fret, 10th fret]) if I play them out of a "standard" D7-chord shape -- slid from the 7th to the 8th fret a couple of times...you'll see....

Eureka: Piece of cake.

Break a leg (or is it "finger"?)!

Ciao back

Offline Marco

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2006, 08:07:40 AM »
Thanks, Dr. G!

This evening I'll try to play the song following your suggestions, in open G.

I'm almost sure about the Bo Carter tuning (G6) but in open G, as you play it, sounds very well.

Thanks for the help!

P.S. Don't forget to post the new MP3.

Ciao!

Marco.

Offline Johnm

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2006, 09:14:20 AM »
Hi all,
Bo did actually play this one in the G6 tuning, Dr. G, although at the time I showed it to Bruce and recorded it with JoAnn Kelly I was still playing it in Spanish tuning myself.  It was hanging out with Sam Chatmon that initiated me to the beauties of playing in the G6 tuning a la Bo.  It works wonderfully well, because all chord shapes on the top four strings are the same as in standard tuning, and you have open strings for the I and V notes on the fifth and sixth strings respectively.  When I recorded "Who's Been Here" on the "First Degree Blues" album, I was playing it out of Spanish and it required the following fingering for the V7 chord behind the singing:   0-X-4-5-3-7, which has the pinky hanging out a hell of a long way above the rest of the shape.  Had the possibility of G6 tuning occurred to me at that point, I would have been able to play the same shape as the much more manageable 0-X-4-5-3-5, which some of you will recognize from Doc Watson's arrangement of "Deep River Blues", up two frets (J. T. Smith loved this shape for a IV7 chord in A standard tuning, too.)  At this juncture, I don't think Bo actually played anything in true Spanish tuning, DGDGBD.  I think all the tunes like "My Baby", "I Want You To Know", "I Get The Blues", "Shake 'Em On Down", "The Law's Gonna Step On You" and a host of others are played in G6 tuning.  I should say that everything Bo played in G6 tuning can be played in Spanish,  (though "I Get The Blues" has a five fret reach with the little finger above an index barre in Spanish) but it is a hell of a lot easier in the G6 tuning.
All best,
Johnm 

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2006, 10:02:04 PM »
Thanks, Johnm, (as ever) for your erudite -- and doubtless, utterly accurate -- exposition.

I have retuned to G6 and replayed the tune, but personally find no particular advantage in either fingering ease or tonality. (Maybe it's just because I've played it out of Spanish for so long....)

FWIW I've tried out my lower-register variation (I'll post it soon, but it's really pretty obvious) in both tunings, and find a miniscule advantage using Spanish (one easier chord shape) -- but not enough difference to write home about.

Speaking of learning things from you way back when, Johnm -- could you possibly have been the skinny 15-16 year old who showed me Furry Lewis' basic D-tuning riff to Kassie Jones (although asserting that it was the "Statesboro Blues" lick) in Ithaca, just before New Year's in 1965 ? Or was there some other young prodigy in that neck of the woods who presaged this whole wonderful weenie campbell phenomenon 4 decades ago?

Best back,

Dr. G


Offline Johnm

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2006, 10:29:13 PM »
Hi Dr. G,
Thanks for the good words.  It wouldn't have been me in Ithaca in 1965.  I didn't make it there until 1970.  What a great town! 
Thinking about this whole Spanish versus G6 thing, I think that sometimes the advantages conferred by customized tunings can be so miniscule that the change in tuning can not be detected simply by listening, but really require observing the player working in the special tuning.  Case in point:  Vestapol Videos has an "African Guitarists" video and it is excellent.  I was watching it once at a friend's house, and listening to the person playing do a piece that sounded very much like Libba Cotten playing in C, standard tuning.  When I watched closely, though, I realized that when the guitarist went to the IV chord, he was playing the low octave bass without fretting the sixth string, so he was tuned F-A-D-G-B-E, to play in C!  Anyone who has played much Libba Cotten, John Hurt or Rev. Davis is so accustomed to wrapping the thumb to get the low root on the F chord, that you take it for granted, as a condition of playing in C.  I know that had I only heard the rendition of the song on the video and not seen it performed, I would never have figured out the alteration in the tuning if I had been re-incarnated three times.  I suspect there are more of these barely customized, player-specific, innovative tunings out there in the world of Country Blues guitar.
All best,
Johnm

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #14 on: October 27, 2006, 06:47:40 AM »
Hey Johnm,

Thanks for more stimulating commentary on topics that I have always found utterly captivating -- but until I discovered weenie campbell, had no one to really discuss them with because I knew so few people (even musicians) who really CARED that much.

Incidentally, my wife Kerstin just walked in and inquired as to whom I was corresponding with at such an early hour on a work day, and when I replied "John Miller" her eyes lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. Although she herself hasn't played guitar since her college days in Sweden -- she taught me "Buddy Bolden's Blues" and "That'll Happen No More" (learned them from Greg Hildebrand in Uppsala in the mid-'60's) -- many of your early Blue Goose recordings (Church Bell Blues, Trouble in the Air, Where Shall I Be, I Never Cried, etc.) became 3-generational family anthems that we sing and play together (with full instrumentation in the living room, around a campfire, or on a flatbed truck on some New England Village green -- or simply a capella if we're driving in the car together somewhere). At the risk of sounding gushy (and I suspect that I speak for many others in this forum) you have always felt like a member of my extended family....

I too have always been intrigued by -- as well as reliant on -- special tunings to provide the optimal setting for certain numbers. As a fellow 5-string banjo player, I learned early that some great fiddle tunes sound terrific in, let us say, "double C" tuning but utterly suck in "G"...and vice versa. And some tunes (Sandy River Belle, Cumberland Gap, e.g.) can be played competently in "G", but simply don't sound right -- wrong overtones, harmonies, dissonances, mood -- unless played in "f".

Also, that something so simple as a capo can utterly kill upper and lower resonances that make a tune come alive and vibrant. Or that a simple string pitch change in an alternative tuning can infintessimally -- but crucially -- bugger up (or, alternatively, supercharge) the timing of a passage solely because the fingering sequence necessarily changes ever so slightly.

On the other hand, because a banjo sounds particularly hellish if even ever-so-slightly out of tune, it can be a nightmarish stage experience to be constantly changing tuning to accommodate the different numbers. (I typically play out with 3 different banjos, tuned to double-C, G, and f, respectively.)

For those following this thread who have not been accustomed to playing in different guitar tunings, it can be nothing short of amazing to discover that a tune you have struggled with in standard tuning can suddenly become as easy as falling off a log when you re-set it in an open tuning. (Case in point: Johnm's terrific guitar accomp to his "I Never Cried" -- I practically wrecked my left hand...actually required cortisone shots in my finger joints, this is no lie...trying to get those riffs in standard, only to discover -- after years of pain -- that they were "just sitting there" in Spanish.)

Another cool thing about different tunings is that they can make a song that is laborious to play (even when mastered) in one setting pure pleasure in another.

And finally (for this post, anyway) there is the whole issue of setting a song to where you can sing it comfortably.

Although I originally played "Somebody on Your Bond" in Spanish, I had to transpose it to Vastapol because I just couldn't sing it in "G" or anything close to it. It seems everybody and his brother plays "Roll and Tumble" (and all its many namesakes) in Spanish, and I did too, for years...but it sucked whenever I played it out (even though the guitar chops were fine) because my vocal accomp was too low to project beyond my own face, much less into the 3rd row. Recently started playing it in Vastapol (anathema, anathema!) -- and now I can actually SING the dang thing, too.

For nearly 30 years I struggled mightily to SING "Church Bell Blues" with any kind of authority in standard tuning. I LOVE playing it in standard....But my voice is much lower and less flexible than Luke Jordan's or Johnm's, and I was sick of capoing it to the 68th fret to be closer to my (limited) vocal range -- my guitar ended up sounding like a mandolin!

So I practically never played Church Bell Blues out, or even at a family get-together -- and it's one of my all-time favorite songs in any genre. But before relegating it to my sadly-growing archive of "Tunes I Love to Play on the Guitar But Can't Sing To" [which for me means they lose much of their lifeblood -- as a2tom trenchantly observed recently, you can be an absolute guitar wizard, but if you ain't SINGING it, most people simply ain't gonna listen to it!] -- I decided to give "Church Bell Blues" a shot in Spanish.

It took a little boogeying, but eventually sounded great to me. A hoot to play, and in a vocal range where I can sing it without a capo! Don't get me wrong: it doesn't SOUND like Luke Jordan's or Johnm's version, but it has its own special, inimitable charms -- including being able to be played comfortably in 2 octaves. And it takes on its own distinctive tonal coloration. (Anybody interested, I'll post it as an mp3).

Whew, that was fun...for me, anyway! (Now back to the factory.)

Dr. G


Offline Slack

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #15 on: October 27, 2006, 08:27:01 AM »
Quote
It took a little boogeying, but eventually sounded great to me. A hoot to play, and in a vocal range where I can sing it without a capo! Don't get me wrong: it doesn't SOUND like Luke Jordan's or Johnm's version, but it has its own special, inimitable charms -- including being able to be played comfortably in 2 octaves. And it takes on its own distinctive tonal coloration. (Anybody interested, I'll post it as an mp3).

Yes Dr. G, I for one would be interested - Church Bell is one of my favorite tunes of all time too.  There are some threads on weenie (I think, or maybe I'm thinking of Johnm's classes) in which casting a tune in a different key or tuning is a great way to put your mark on it and come up with "new" country blues.  So I'm always interested in hearing how a different key or tuning puts a on new twist.

Enjoy your writing style as well.. lotsa fun! 

Offline Johnm

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #16 on: October 27, 2006, 11:56:32 PM »
Thanks very much for the good words, Dr. G.  It's really nice to hear that your family listened to those old records and sing those songs.  That's great!
All best,
Johnm

Offline Dr. G

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #17 on: October 28, 2006, 05:27:07 AM »
OK, Slack...so here are a few verses of Church Bell Blues played in Spanish (capoed to "A" here, although I think I prefer it up at B-flat)...call it "A Tribute to Johnm" if you will. A family member contributed some hand claps to make it sound more like Sunday meeting.

Just for yucks, after my morning coffee I think I'll re-post it on its own "Church Bell Blues -- Different Settings" thread...I realize now that I've recorded it in "D" with my ensemble Dr. G's Good Medicine, and in some other key entirely (you know, the old capo-till-it-sounds-like-a-mandolin thing) with my son as a a guitar and vocal duet. Quite a different feel each time....

Dr. G

Offline Slack

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #18 on: October 28, 2006, 09:00:48 AM »
Terrific Dr. G - love it and I've commented over in the Church Bell thread!

rbuniv

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Re: Baby I Want You to Know
« Reply #19 on: November 30, 2006, 06:33:41 AM »
Hello all;

Just recorded my version of "Babe I Want You To Know" played in standard tuning in the key of D with the following chords,first part, D, G7, D, G7, D, B7, E & A. Second part, G, D, B7,E & A. The B7 in the first part is a bar chord on the fourth fret and the E is a D position on the fourth fret. In the second part both the B7 and E are first position chords.

Sorry for the MP3 garble, especially the high notes on the guitar!

RB

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