Level: 3
Tuning: Standard

Candy Man appears to be, and sounds like, at first hearing, a beautiful, fairly simple 16-bar song. Rev. Davis was always playing it, even in his sleep, according to Dave Van Ronk. In fact, it is fiendishly conceived. I have found it to be very difficult to teach. The melody starts on the open G string, and moves back and forth from that G note to the relative minor, the A on the second fret. Where the melody starts is where the first beat lands. This means that the first beat starts on the high base, rather than the low. This reverses the beat from almost any song that can be found in this guitar tradition. A handful of Rev. Davis' songs start this way, a notable other example being You Got The Pocketbook, I Got The Key. The tip-off comes with the three base notes at the end of the progression the G, E, C. That C, rather than being the first note in the last bar is the last note, the 4th beat. Van Ronk recorded it as a normal song, with the beat in the usual place. In his biography, written by Elijah Wald, he says that he knew he had it wrong and actually dreamt that he was playing it right for the Rev. This song is another example of Rev. Davis taking a simple country-style song and turning it into something unique to him and very special.