Joe Bonamassa - Ballad of John Henry with Bass
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I do this song in the original key (B). The original version here is pretty good and is decently faithful to the album version, but is in D.
I wanted to do a slightly more rocked up version, so I made some tweaks.
Split apart the second verse and the breakdown into separate parts.
Added a 1 measure intro and spiced up verse 2 and 3 (similar to how Joe does it live)
Move the bass lines to B and made a slight groove tweak on the main riff bass line
Intro
1 - Main Riff (Fill 1 = Verse 1, Fill 2 = Verse 2)
2 - Bridge Riff where it goes kind of exotic sounding
3 - Lead
4 - Breakdown between lead and verse 3. Start verse when ready and Trigger transition at the end of the first line of Verse 3
5 - Verse 3 - Rocked up more than album version.
6 - Main Riff (For last chorus and ending lead).
Outro
Ballad_of_John_Henry_in_B_with_Bass.sng (750.9 KB)
*Musician’s note - This was based on one of Joe’s live versions and a version I used to do in my old power trio. Wanted to bring it back for my duo. I have a semi-hollow body I keep tuned to C# from when I used to do a bunch of Black Sabbath tunes. I use Erne Ball Not Even Slinky string (56-12). For this tune I put it in Drop-B. Between the Drop-B, Semi Hollow Body, and metal-coat-hanger sized strings it sounds freaking EPIC. I can’t wait to debut this with my duo. My keyboard player will be providing all the organ and horn tones for this one!