Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Country

  • Waxahatchee – Right Back to It (Tabs)

    Waxahatchee – Right Back to It (Tab)Download

    This arrangement of Waxahatchee’s Right Back to It is a rare outing in the key of Bb, which keeps all the melodies comfortably within the first few frets.

    But there’s still plenty of movement up and down the neck in the song’s instrumental sections. And there are many of those with an intro and two solos. I’ve kept the intro close to the original. And I recommend you do the same. But the solos have plenty of room for your own ideas. For mine, I’m following the chord shapes and adding in notes from the Bb major scale (plus a C# in bars 42 and 54 for a bluesy edge). And I use lots of slides and bends to imitate a lap steel guitar. The lick in bar 53 in particular is a classic lap steel move.

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  • Willie Nelson – Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Tabs)

    Willie Nelson – Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Tab)Download

    Intro: Matching the Willie version by following the bass notes using the thumb on the g- and C-strings. Followed by strums. 

    Verse and Bridge: Continuing the thumb-plucking and strums, and adding the melody line. Most of the melody line is picked with the fingers, but some notes are part of the strummed chords. 

    There’s a simple lick in bar 11 and a couple of lines inspired by the walking bass in bars 12 and 20.

    Solo: With Willie playing a nylon string guitar, his solo suits the ukulele fairly well. 

    The one problem is the bends. It is much easier to do bends on a uke in the middle of the fretboard. So I’m bending the E-string at the 7th fret rather than the A-string at the second fret. That does require some shifts up and down the fretboard. 

    Although the song is in swing time, the descending line at the end of the solo (bars 43-44) is played straight. 

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  • Old Crow Medicine Show/Darius Rucker – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)

    OCMS – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)Download

    Old Crow Medicine Show’s Wagon Wheel is pretty much ubiquitous wherever ukuleles are strummed. Or any instrument is strummed. Even Kesha has had a go at it.

    Part of the reason it’s so popular is its long gestation taking in Curtis Jone’s Roll Me Mama and Bob Dylan’s mumbled demo Rock Me Mama before OCMS’s Ketch Secor gave the song its current form. It’s not a coincidence that a song passing through so many hands would shape it into something so widely loved. Which is why the current music copyright insanity is so harmful.

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  • Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tabs)

    Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tab)Download

    Here’s my take on Brandi Carlile’s Joni Mitchell influenced and very catchy You and Me on the Rock.

    Intro: The Mitchell influence kicks in right away with a Big Yellow Taxi-esque strumming riff.

    Verse: And continues with a wordy verse. It’s tricky to hit every note in the melody. So I’ve taken a few liberties. Don’t stress to much about hitting every note and string exactly.

    Chorus: Things calm down a bit in the chorus. And I move from strumming only to include more picking. Even with the picking I’m doing a bit of “flick up” motion so I stroke the next string along. Making the note softer but still supporting the main melody.

    The chorus ends with a bar of 2/4 but it flows naturally.

    Bridge: There’s a short bluesy lick leading into the bridge introducing the more minor feel with the addition of Eb (the first chord outside the bog-standard I-IV-V in the rest of the song).

    Outro: The outro is cut down from the original so it’s just the second half of the chorus.

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  • Johnny Cash/NIN – Hurt (Tabs)

    Johnny Cash/NIN – Hurt (Tab)Download

    This arrangement of Hurt is very much based on the Cash version. But I was a massive Nine Inch Nails fan as an angsty teen, so some of that version might have slipped through.

    The plodding pace of this song makes it pretty easy to play. Just make sure you give the strings some welly in the chorus to recreate the thundering, steady pianos.

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  • Dolly Parton – Jolene (Tabs)

    Dolly Parton – Jolene (Tab)Download

    Following on from I Will Always Love You with the song Dolly wrote on the same day. I don’t know how it’s possible to write two all-time classics in one day.

    The arrangement starts out with a very basic version of the chorus. You could play the verse in this style and create a nice arrangement.

    Next is an approximation of the intro riff from the original. The syncopated rhythm is tricky to get the hang of. Apparently, even the session musicians had trouble getting it down. I’ve made a close up video for just this section. If you want to play along to the original, you’ll have to tune down half a step to Gb B Eb Ab.

    The verse and chorus are based on an alternating thumb picking pattern (moving between the C and g-strings) like the original. Unfortunately, the melody sometimes strays onto the C-string which complicates matters. I found it a little tricky to switch in and out of the alternating pattern. But after starting super-low and gradually increasing the speed, it started to feel almost on autopilot after a while.

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  • Dolly Parton – I Will Always Love You (Tabs)

    Dolly Parton – I Will Always Love You (Tab)Download

    I Will Always Love You is one of those songs where a cover version has completely obliterated the original. But Dolly’s version is still my favourite. Specifically, the 70s countrified version rather than the syrupy 80s version. So I used that one as the basis for this arrangement. Although some of the phrasing might be closer to the Whitney Houston version.

    The intro is the trickiest part of the arrangement with a couple of bends and a bar of 2/4 to navigate.

    The arrangement uses a lot of arpeggios. So you really need to emphasise the melody notes so it doesn’t just become a mush. But you can rely on most people being familiar with the melody, so they’ll do some of the work for you.

    You do need to prepare a bit for the high vocal trills in bars 15 and 19. There are open strings either side of those to give you a bit more time to move.

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  • Roy Orbison – Crying (Tabs)

    Roy Orbison – Crying (Tab)Download

    Here’s a version of Roy Orbison’s Crying. Which Rolling Stone declared the 69th greatest song of all time. Nice.

    Roy Orbison’s unmistakeable falsetto is in full effect in this song. So the big challenge here is jumping up and now the neck accurately.

    In the second chorus, the melody goes all the way up to the 15th fret. If you can’t access that fret on your uke, you can just play it the same as the first chorus. Or, if you really want to go for it, you could use artificial harmonics.

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  • Rascal Flatts – Bless the Broken Road (Tab)

    Rascal Flatts – Bless the Broken Road (Tab)Download

    Bless the Broken Road was originally recorded by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. But became a big hit for Rascal Flatts when they covered it. I discovered the song through RMR’s incongruous reworking of it. My arrangement is based on the Rascal Flatts version. Although I was singing the RMR version in my head.

    The song has a beautiful melody that fits nicely on the uke. The chord changes come fast, but they’re all simple chords. The intro/outro and the solo are the trickiest parts. But I’ve tried to keep those as playable as possible. You can always lay out on the solo if you want to show off.

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  • John Denver – Christmas for Cowboys (Tabs)

    John Denver – Christmas for Cowboys (Tab)Download

    Probably my favourite Christmas song without swears in. And a fitting song for a Christmas where so many people are separated from their loved ones.

    The first time I heard this song was a ukulele cover by Ballard C Boyd (who is now a director and producer for Colbert).

    The arrangement is dead simple so you can focus on playing it with feeling.

    Don’t pay any attention to my fingering. I jacked up the tip of my index finger doing the lazy man’s load. So I’m fingering some things in a weird way.

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