During his visit, Fahey succeeded in greatly impressing me by picking out an old blues by Little Hat Jones, and demonstrating Charley Patton's masterpiece, 'Down the Dirt Road', which I subsequently set about copying. In my 19-year-old neophyte's eyes, any guitarist who could approximate a vintage blues accompaniment was a virtuoso; only six or seven players in the entire country applied themselves to such pieces - Stephen Calt on the state of blues guitar in the early 1960s, from A Fahey Memoir (unpublished)
The C version of this tune is one of the first rags I learned and is a lot of fun to play. I was inspired to do this tune for SOTM after John Miller gave a class at PT that explained the progression in C and G. I associate it with Blind Boy Fuller because he had numerous versions, but there are lots of others.
Here's the progression:
I [III7] / VI7 / II7 V7 / I
I [III7] / VI7 / II7 / V7
I / I7 / IV / Idim
I [III7] / VI7 / II7 V7 / I [V7]
II7 V7 / I
and here's Blind Boy Fuller:
Memphis Minnie
Milton Brown
« Last Edit: October 18, 2019, 04:14:32 PM by eric »
Here's the original--or at least from my limited knowledge I consider it "the original" *in terms of lyrics.* There are many other songs with the same progression ... anyone know of a predecessor with the "Truckin'" theme in the lyrics?
And a version of Chesterfield that I really love from John Jackson:
« Last Edit: October 17, 2019, 07:29:25 PM by lindy »