Louis Collins - Tutorial + Tab

 

In this video, I will show you how to play the guitar part from Mississippi John Hurt's song Louis Collins. The guitar part is played on a guitar in standard tuning, is in the Key of C, and is in 4/4 time. Like most of Mississippi John Hurt's songs, this is very repetitive. The guitar part is 11 bars long and is repeated through the entire song. The guitar part uses a travis picking pattern, so if you are used to playing like this, it shouldn't be too problematic. 

Below are some tips to help you play this piece and links to download the tab. I have also provided the lyrics if you wish to sing the vocal parts too

Nobody's Dirty Business Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

Louis Collins - Mississippi John Hurt - Lyrics

Mrs. Collins weeped, Mrs. Collins moaned,
To see her son Louis leavin' home
The angels laid him away
The angels laid him away,
They laid him six feet under the clay
The angels laid him away

 
Mrs. Collins weeped, Mrs. Collins moaned,
To see her son Louis leavin' home
The angels laid him away
Oh, Bob shot once and Louis shot too,
Shot poor Collins, shot him through and through
The angels laid him away

 
Oh, kind friends, oh, ain't it hard?,
To see poor Louis in a new graveyard
The angels laid him away
The angels laid him away,
They laid him six feet under the clay
The angels laid him away

 
Oh, when they heard that Louis was dead
All the people they dressed in red
The angels laid him away
The angels laid him away,
They laid him six feet under the clay
The angels laid him away

 
Mrs. Collins weeped, Mrs. Collins moaned,
To see her son Louis leavin' home
The angels laid him away
The angels laid him away,
They laid him six feet under the clay
The angels laid him away

• Making the G Chord - The G chord is relatively straigtforward to play and shouldn't be too difficult in this piece. However, the fingerings for this chord might be different to what you are used to. Often people will play the G chord using the middle finger on lowest E string and the ring or pinky on the highest E string. However, this probably isn't the best way to play it in this piece. For this, it is best to play it with the ring finger on the 3rd fret of the lowest E string and the pinky on the 3rd fret of the highest E string. This offers a number of advantages. Firstly, it allows you to play the 1st fret on the highest E string with your index finger when required. This is seen in bar 3 of the music. Also, it is more efficient to make this shape when changing into and out of the C chord as it involves less movement of the fretting hand. If you aren't used to making a G chord like this, I would recommend practising it like this, as it makes playing music like this easier.


• The Big Slide - In the 1st bar of the main section of music (bar 2 in the tab) you slide from fret 3 up to fret 5, and then move back to fret 3. Although this normally wouldn't be too tricky, it becomes harder because you will probably be fretting that note with your pinky (see above about making the G chord). Because of this, it is easy to mess up this slide, especially if you are forming the full G chord with your other fingers. I would recommend, when doing the slide, to lift all your fingers apart from the pinky off the fretboard and just sliding with the pinky only. Then replanting all your fingers when reforming the G chord in the next bar. If you are comfortable sliding from fret 3 to 5, then you can also maybe slide back to fret 3 when reforming the G chord. Although this is even trickier, it does sound good.
  


• Fast Tempo - The song is played at a very fast tempo, like a lot of John Hurt's music. This is played at roughly 160bpm which is fast for a fingerstyle guitar piece. Although the fast pace shouldn't pose too many problems, you do have to make the chord changes very quickly and accurately to avoid falling out of time and not playing the notes cleanly. The 3 chords used are C, F and G so you should familiar with playing these. However, I recommend learning this piece of music at a slower tempo and once you can play it, try upping the tempo then.

 
This is about all I need to say about this piece. If you are used to playing travis picking fingerstyle guitar you should be able to learn this quickly enough. Once you get used to the fast tempo and are able to make the chord changes quickly and accurately you should be able to play this song quite easily.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil