Mississippi River Blues - Big Bill Broonzy - Tutorial + Tab

 

This is my version of the blues tune Mississippi River Blues by Big Bill Broonzy. Not to be confused with a song of the same name by Jimmie Rodgers, as they are completely different songs. Like many of his songs, this one has been covered many times by different artists. I have tried to keep this as close to the original as possible.

It is played on a guitar in standard tuning with a capo on Fret 3, is in 4/4 time, and is in the key of G.

Below are the lyrics, some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Mississippi River Blues Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT

 

Here are the lyrics to the song if you wish to sing along:

 

Lyrics 

 

Mississ-ippi river
Is so long, deep and wide
I can see my good girl
Standin' on that other side

 

I cried an I called
I could not make my baby hear
Lord, I'm 'on get me a boat, woman
Paddle on away from here

 

Ain't it hard to love someone
When they are so far from you
Lord, I'm on' get me a boat and
Paddle this old river blue

 

I went down to the landing
To see if any boats were there
And the fareman told me
Could not find the boats nowhere

 

The big boat ease up the river
Are turnin' 'round an 'round
Lord, I'm 'on get me a good girl
Or jump overboard an drown

 Source: lyricfind

• Capo on Fret 3 - Broonzy's original version is in the Key of G. This is achieved by taking a guitar in Standard Tuning and putting a capo on Fret 3. You do not have to use a capo and can play this piece without one. This would mean the music would then be in the Key of E. It would still sound fine but would not be in the same key as the original recording
  

• Bass Note Picking - The music employs a bass note picking pattern with the thumb. This is not a completely standard pattern and varies through the music. For most of the music it just plays the bass note on each beat of the bar on the same string, whether that be the 4, 5 or 6th string. However, there are a lot of variations thrown in. In bars 3 and 4, the bass notes switch to a travis picking pattern, alternating between strings with each beat. There are also 1/8th notes inserted in the bass line at the end of some of the bars, and there is a bass note run on bar 7. If you are struggling playing these bass notes, try playing it with a standard bass note picking pattern on one string, omitting the travis picking pattern and the 1/8th notes. It will still sound fine.
  

• Barring Across The Strings - The easiest and most efficient way to play this piece is to use a barre across the top four strings of the guitar (you can see this on the video). This can be used for the majority of the music. You only have to make this barre across fret 4 and fret 2 when playing the corresponding section. When you are playing bars 1, 5, and 9 of the music, you are making the shape of a standard D chord although it is on fret 4. You could again use the barre across fret 4 here, although I choose to make the standard D chord shape. Although you could play this whole song without any barring, some of the bars of music would be quite tricky to play, especially bars 3 and 4 where it plays a run of notes.
  

• Song Structure -There is effectively just two sections of music to this whole song and I have included both these sections in the tab. There is the intro / fill section which is bars 1-8 of the music, and then there is the verse section which is bars 9-16 in the tab. Although there are a few note variations when these repeat in the original, there is very little difference. The lyrics are sung over the verse section only. Below is the structure of the song using these two sections:

I = Intro / Fill     V=Verse

 

Song Structure

 

IVVIVVIV

 
This is about all I need to say about this piece. If you are comfortable playing fingerstyle blues on guitar with a repeating bass note pattern, then this shouldn't be too tricky to learn.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil