Level: 2
Tuning: Standard

This is one of Rev. Davis’s most traditional sounding pieces — a typical Piedmont A blues. In the context of his wider repertoire, it is relatively simple and he often used it to teach beginners, using it to introduce them to his playing. It revolves around a second position G, or ‘long-A’ form A chord. The first finger of the left hand frets the four high strings, second fret, and the little finger frets the first string, fifth fret. By sliding from the first to the second fret of the second string, moving from the minor to the major III, and then playing the second fret, G string, the I, he plays the word “spoonful”. He plays this in different octaves: eighth to ninth frets first string (D form A) to the tenth fret second string, and by choking up on the third fret, low E string, the open low E.

Though I have heard him occasionally use the IV chord, the D or D7 in the second bar, in this song, he most always plays it with just with A and E chords, the I and the V. Starting out, in the A chord, notice that he often uses the standard blues ‘thumb drag’ from the open low E string to the open A, on the ‘+ one’ beat. When he gets to the E7 chord, he hammers on the first fret of the G string some of the time, and plays the open high E to the seventh on the third fret, second string.