Anyone Can Play Guitar

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Rockabilly

Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps

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A Cramps classic (in fact a cover version of a song originally played by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads).

Here’s my video:

Music/Tab

I’ve written the parts out below. The Kid Congo part in open E and the Poison Ivy part in standard tuning, including some details that I skipped over in the video.

Backing Track

Here’s a backing track I made of the complete song to play along to:

An mp3 of the backing track and PDFs/Guitar Pro files of my tabs are available to members of my Patreon page. Check it out here groovers!

 

 

Lonesome Train (On a Lonesome Track) by the Rock n Roll Trio

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An all-time rockabilly classic, this one. The solo – played by Nashville session ace Grady Martin – is particularly stunning. If you’ve not heard the original song, check it out here (the video below seems to be a mimed performance, with Paul Burlison on guitar.) Also, the entire Rock n Roll Trio album is essential listening and a very influential record – Clapton, Page and Beck were all fans.

Here’s my video:

Music/tab

I’ve written out the intro  lick and the complete solo below. For a PDF of the tab which also includes the verse/ending parts as well as an MP3 file of my backing track please sign up to my Patreon page.

Fancy learning more rockabilly songs about trains?

Then check out this lesson I did a while back on Elvis’ Mystery Train.

Other rockabilly lessons you might enjoy:

Gene Vincent’s Race With The Devil.

Rockabilly Rhythm Essentials

Rockabilly Double Stops

Awesome Rockabilly Lick

Diminished Scale Rockabilly Lick

 

 

Mystery Train as recorded by Elvis/Scotty Moore

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“Scotty Moore was my icon. He was Elvis’s guitar player on all the Sun Records stuff. He’s on “Mystery Train”, he’s on “Baby Let’s Play House”. Now I know the man, I’ve played with him. I know the band. But back then, just being able to get through “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone”, that was the epitome of guitar playing. And then “Mystery Train” and “Money Honey”. I’d have died and gone to heaven just to play like that.” How the hell was that done? That’s the stuff I first brought to the johns at Sidcup, playing a borrowed f-hole archtop Höfner. That was before the music led me back into the roots of Elvis and Buddy – back to the blues.” –  Keith Richards talking about Scotty Moore in his autobiography Life.

In this lesson I take a detailed look at one of Scotty Moore’s most celebrated guitar performances. My version is based on the 1955 Sun Records single:

As is often the case when I prepare these lessons, I find myself discovering new things about songs I assumed I already knew how to play inside out. For this tune, I found myself changing some of my fingerings and chord voicings in order to get a bit closer to the way Scotty does it. There doesn’t seem to be any video footage of Scotty playing this tune live with Elvis, but I did find this version performed with Eric Clapton. There are some good close ups of Scotty and although he’s not playing it exactly the same way as on the original, it’s useful to be able to see his technique and check which position he’s using to play some of the chords.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEN9I70npbM&feature=youtu.be

Below is my transcription. I haven’t written out the entire song in full, just the intro, first verse and solo. Subsequent verses are played more or less the same way, but feel free to mix up the picking pattern slightly. Scotty doesn’t stick rigidly to the same pattern during the song, but varies it slightly throughout. Remember to keep 4 steady bass notes going in each bar with your pick/thumbpick and to play all the other notes with the fingers of your picking hand. Download a PDF of the music here, if you wish.

Equipment/sound

A big part of the rock ‘n’ roll guitar sound is its use of slapback echo. Scotty Moore would have originally used some kind of tape echo, but you should be able to approximate the sound with any kind of delay effect. I’m using my MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal. Keep the delay time very short and the feedback set to 0 and before you know it you’ll be in rockabilly heaven.

More lessons you might enjoy

Rockabilly Rhythm Essentials – in this lesson I take a detailed look at the rhythm guitar techniques employed by Scotty Moore, Carl Perkins and any number of rock n roll greats. A good introduction to this style of playing.

Lonesome Train (On a Lonesome Track) – this is another classic rockabilly guitar piece. Essential if you’re interested in this style of music.

Race With The Devil A detailed, 3 part look at one of the great rockabilly guitar performances from Cliff Gallup.

An Awesome Rockabilly Lick

 

Race With The Devil by Cliff Gallup

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by Cliff Gallup – Part 1: Rhythm Guitar

I only got into the music of rock n roll legend Cliff Gallup relatively recently, but after I learned this track and a couple of others, it was easy to see why his playing is held in such high regard. This song contains many of his most famous licks and, as I say in the video, if you learn it from start to finish you’ll be giving yourself a thorough schooling in the style and techniques of rockabilly guitar. Gallup has been described as one of the first shredders and he was certainly technically a long way ahead of his time. Even for the modern player this song is still quite demanding, and you’ll want to get it together slowly and accurately first if you want to play it with groove and precision at the tempo of the original.

Below is my transcription of the intro and verse part. Cliff Gallup is one of those players of whom there appears to be no video footage, (I couldn’t locate any on You Tube – let me know if you can find anything elsewhere) so I’ve just followed my ears and my instincts as far as the particular fingerings I’ve chosen go. It works well, and feels right to me. Other people might do it a bit differently, and you’re certainly free to experiment with playing notes on other strings or in different positions if you like. I’ve marked the most obvious whammy bar scoops with the little v-type symbol above the tab. The subsequent verses are almost identical to this one. When the key change kicks in, just move everything one fret higher to the key of F. Click here if you want a high-quality PDF you can print off.

Part 2 – 1st Solo

Here’s part 2 in my series of lessons looking at Cliff Gallup’s playing on Race With The Devil. In this video I look at the first guitar solo. It’s a perfectly formed rock ‘n’ roll solo – flashy, memorable and grooving. Below is my best attempt at a transcription – I hope it’s pretty accurate, but it’s definitely no substitute for careful listening to the original. I’ll leave the right-hand picking up to you. Mostly I aim to pick down on the strong beats and up on the off-beats, though sometimes I break this rule and throw in more downstrokes for extra emphasis.  You can download a high-quality PDF of the transcription here.

Part 3: second Solo

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So here we have Gallup’s second dazzling solo from the tune Race With The Devil. And it’s another corker: packed with great rockabilly licks, technical prowess and whammy bar subtleties. We’ve moved up a semi tone to the key of F, and the entire solo is played in the 1st position apart from a momentary sliding excursion up the high E string. Below is my best attempt at a transcription. I think it’s pretty accurate, though there were one or two notes where it was hard to tell if a bend had been achieved with the fingers or by using the bar. Have a close listen yourself and see what you reckon. Download a high-quality PDF of the music here.

Getting The Sound

If you’re a real gear nerd you might like to check out this article I found which goes into the minutiae of Cliff’s equipment. Even if you don’t own the Gretsch Duo-Jet and vintage tube amp that our man used, you should still be able to get close using whatever gear you have. The key elements to the sound are a fairly warm, clean tone and some kind of delay effect. Use a clean, Fender-y sounding amp, with a fairly low gain setting. Dial back the treble if you’ve got a particularly bright sounding guitar. Grab a delay pedal and set it to a single, fairly quick repeat for that classic rock n roll slap-back echo. It helps if you have a guitar with a whammy bar so you can do some of the little glides into notes. In the absence of a Duo-Jet, I’m using my Bigsby-equipped Les Paul which actually works quite well for this song. Usually I’m a stickler for using old-school gear and effects, but for convenience when filming this video I recorded straight into my computer and used Amplitube software (a Fender tweed emulation) to get the guitar tone.