Old Joe Clark

Oh, by the way, this sounds really good with a sharp distortion, even though its a bluegrass song (I think)

This looks pretty cool; do you have the words to go with it?
Give us a lesson.
-Bull

I have two versions of this song.  One is in the key of A in "American Favorite Ballads" by Pete Seeger.  The other is in the key of G in the Folk Song Encyclopedia Volume I by Jerry Silverman.  Both tunes are modal (they are in those keys but they are not Ionian... but I am not cool enough to know what mode they are... not the relative minor in any event).  

Anyway the words are different in both.  The first verse is the same in both, but the chorus and all the verses are different.  

So, the question would be: Which do we want?  The both use two chords.  One used E and D and the other uses D and C.   (Let's see Fifth Degree of the scale, so would that be Mixolydian mode... curse you NoteBoat!  Now I can't stop thinking about theory.  My head's gonna burst :)

It looks like the tab that was posted is in C (or G Mixolydian -- someone stop the voices in my head! :)

So, something would need to be transposed, to use that tab.

Oh one final note.  While Old Joe Clark may have been done as a bluegrass tune, it is a folk tune.  Bluegrass started in the first half of this past century (forties, I think).  Old Joe Clark is from the 19th century, quite possibly from the War of 1812 or just after, since Joe Clark was apparently a veteran of that war -- the song was based on a real person.  But I bet it sounds good using the bluegrass church lick.  That strum is bass-down-up, bass-down-up (kinda fast, two per measure, more interesting if the bass alters.  Even more interesting if you toss in bass runs when changing chords -- but we may be straying from our beginner-ness with some of that).

Sorry, I don't know the lyrics, like I said my teacher gave this to me, only the tab.

This is all I could find- Bull

Old Joe Clark

This is just the simple melody with nothing added,
when playing it for show you have to add the licks
around this to come up with your own break for the song.

Capo on the 2nd Fret

Play Part A Twice followed by Part B Twice and then play until your
fingers are soar

Part A
E-------0-1-0--------------0-1-0--------------0-1-0--------|
B--0-1-3------3-1-0--0-1-3--------3-333-0-1-3-------3-1-0--|
G----------------------------------------------------------|
D----------------------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------|

E----------------------------------------------------------|
B----------------------------------------------------------|
G---0-2-4-0-2---0------------------------------------------|
D-------------4--------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------|

Part B
E----------------------------------------------------------|
B-----------333-1-0---------------------------333-1-0------|
G-----0-000-----------0-000-------------0-000--------------|
D---0---------------0-------0-3-333---0--------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------|

E----------------------------------------------------------|
B----------------------------------------------------------|
G---0-2-4-0-2---0------------------------------------------|
D-------------4--------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------|

See my message above.  I have chords and lyrics in two keys.  Neither of the keys I have are the key you guys are showing (but they are transposable).

The chords used are V-IV (and the IV chord is only used in two HALF measures, with the V chord being used the rest of the time).  So I have one with E-D, and another with D-C,  in C it would be G-F.  So, which chord pairing do we want.  I will post the lyrics from the Pete Seeger version tomorrow when I get a second to type them all in.  And if you want I can put the Jerry Silverman version up also (again need some more time to type).  The melody lines I have are MUCH more useful than tab as they are in standard notation, so you get all the groovy rhytm info in addition to the notes, but standard notation would be hard to post in the format we are using.

Suggestions?  Comments?

This looks pretty cool