Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (Tab)
Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers. You might recognise the riff as the sample in Blackstreet’s fantastic No Diggity. Or maybe James Corden’s terrible England song.
This arrangement is very simple and the tempo is slow, so this is a very approachable tab to take on.
Intro: I hadn’t realised until starting on this arrangement that the No Diggity riff isn’t a straight sample of the original. In his version, Bill Withers has an Esus4 chord missing from that version. I went with the No Diggity version for this arrangement (and so did Gregory Porter’s guitarist).
If you want a more authentic version, you could play it like this:
Verse: A couple fingerings to help with the chord changes here. At the end of bar 5, play the A-string, 2nd fret with your index finger barred over all the strings. That’ll set you up for the B7 chord in the next bar.
In bars 10 and 11 (and in the repeats), play the A-string, 2nd fret with your middle finger so you have your index and ring fingers ready for the A7 chord.
Outro: A little minor pentatonic lick to finish things off.
