Level: 2
Tuning: Standard

The most accomplished of the "dead-thumb" guitarists, Mance Lipscomb's propulsive bass lines anchored his dance-like, spontaneous melodies. A consummate country blues style fingerpicker, the music of Lipscomb is a pathway to discovering a musical culture of the early 20th century that has had a profound influence ever since. Mance's recordings were rooted in both White and Black song and dance forms that not only included blues forms, but ballads, waltzes, children's songs, jigs, reels, and polkas as well as styles Lipscomb himself coined descriptions for, such as the buzzard lope, cakewalk, slow drag, and ballin' the jack. Mance use to say that "Sugarbabe" was the first song he learned to play. The arrangement taught in this lesson is in the key of E and uses simple first position chords.