Irving Berlin – Blue Skies (Tabs)
Versions of Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies range widely in their approach. There are uptempo takes, such as the Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole versions, which lean into the suspiciously joyful “we’ll never have problems again“-ness of it. And there are slow, mournful takes like Dinah Washington’s.
This arrangement lands somewhere near the Willie Nelson version with a lot of bluesy touches.
Intro: Starting of with an E minor chord set against chromatically descending notes on the C-string. This bit is mostly picking out notes from the chords with some short licks thrown in. It’s all fingerpicked until the strums leading into the verse in bars 7 and 8.
Verse: Nice and easy to play. The melody is contained and the chords are simple to play. Here I’m picking the melody and strumming everything else.
Chorus: The chorus is more of a challenge. Be sure to keep this section staccato (i.e. short notes) to set it against the more legato verses.
Solo: For the solo, I stuck closely to the chords and melody notes. Throwing in a few bluesy bends here and there. I get a bit more adventurous in the second half, throwing in some chromatic notes in bar 43 and an E minor pentatonic lick in bar 45. I’d recommend building your own solo using any ideas from this solo you like and playing in your own style.
Links
Buy the Willie Nelson version
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