Level: 3/4
Tuning: Standard

This is another virtuoso piece, possibly learned from Blind Willie Walker when he and the young hot guitarist Gary Davis led a string band together. It is, of course loosely based on Scott Joplin’s famous Maple Leaf Rag. Throughout the song, the main fingerpicking employed is Rev. Davis’ right hand ‘thumb roll’. Since he used only the thumb and forefinger of the right hand for picking, he devised a perfect way to play triplets.

It goes: thumb, finger, thumb, thumb, finger, finger, thumb. This pattern rolls through the whole tune and gives it it’s distinctive syncopation. He starts with the A diminished, 5th fret, goes down to the 1st position A and then to the base run that repeats throughout. He marches through the song’s diminished chords, triplets, runs, dissonant chords (the Ab5) until it sweeps up the neck, the D form A on the 9th fret. He stays up there through the E form A and there C7 form E