On hearing of the sad news of the death of Little Richard I had to bash out this classic. Refined and precise, it is not. But hopefully it’s got some of the spirit of the original and is closer to Little Richard than it is to Pat Boone.
It’s just three chords all the way through (G, C and D) with some picking of the melody. If you want to add a Little Richard “Woooooo!” in at any point you just add a A-string, 5th fret to the top of the G chord.
Samer uke started a challenge to play this song and spread some aloha and a bunch of people have jumped on. So here’s a very simple arrangement if you want to do likewise.
The song is all played with the thumb on the picking hand and the chords are just C, Am, F and G. And I have added fingering suggestions in a couple of places that make for smoother transitions. There’s plenty of room in the arrangement for you to add your own flair to it.
Thanks to Patreon Jenn for requesting this typically catchy stomper from The Lumineers.
Most of the arrangement is strummed with the melody notes added to the chords. Arranging like that does risk the melody getting lost in the chords. It helps that this song has a strong melody. And it really helps if the listener already knows the song.
The little arrowheads above the notes indicate emphasised strums. So give those an extra bit of oomph or the strum is going to sound very boring.
In these divided times it’s comforting to know that Kanye lovers and Kanye haters can unite in hating Kanye.
Like James Brown and Duke Ellington, one of Kanye’s under-appreciated skills is finding talented collaborators and pushing them to make their best work. For the first piece in this little medley, he worked with arranger Rosie Danvers. Who until that point had mostly worked with British artists and recently worked on Dave’s showstopping performance at the BRITS.
Kanye had a whole raft of collaborators on Violent Crimes (including an unexpected writing credit for the drummer form Pond). But the standout collaborator here is 070 Shake who was signed to Kanye’s label from nowhere and was immediately phenomenal on this album.
The two songs tackle the subject of loss of innocence in two different ways. Lyrically and musically. All of the Lights uses basic chords and a simple, emotional melody. Violent Crimes uses a maze of complex jazz chords. But I think they work together very nicely.
Violent Crimes on Amazon
All of the Lights (Interlude) on Amazon
More rap tabs
Uke Hunt Patreon
Finishing off this bonus Patreon week with a request from Taras. A fitting request since this week sees the 30th anniversary of Twin Peaks.
Other than some thumb action in bars 27 and 28, I’m using one finger per string picking all the way through. And thanks to the slow pace, it’s mostly easy going.