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One Dime Blues
from Paul Rishell’s Dirt Road Blues
All right, we’re doing “One Dime Blues” by Blind Lemon Jefferson, standard tuning, no capo, in the key of E. When he starts the song, he sort of starts by fiddling around with parts of the song, so that’s what we’ll do. Basically, he runs through the chord changes he’s going to use, so we might as well do the same thing.
He uses a substitution for E, basically a D chord moved up two frets, in which only the fretted notes are played against an open low E string. The hammer-on on the E chord is from the open G string to the first fret, which is the major third of the E major chord (G#).
So start out the song sort of alternating E to D with the right hand, hammering that G. After you hit the G, play the B string open with your first finger, alternate picking. You want to pinch both Es at the end of that. Hammer the G with your first finger with both hands, play the B open with your first finger with your right hand. Then when you get to the E to finish the phrase, you’re pinching that low E on the bottom, so get your thumb moving there.
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