soulshine

[ira]

saw warren haynes open for (as well as play with) the dead for 2 nights last wkend. he played solo acoustic and it was amazing. he did an allman's song- soulshine. it was gorgeous- anyone play this one? anyone transpose to a different key (its in a#). ?

[Dave Caulkins]

Ahhh... Soulshine is a great tune, I've heard Gov't Mule rip that one up (my favorite jamband bar none these days). It is a Allmans' tune, but Warren wrote it for them (he actually wrote a bit of good new material for them in the 90s, as they didn't seem to be producing much on their own at that point).

Do I play it? No... Am I going to learn it? Yeah... I'd almost forgot how much I liked that song!

Dave

[ira]

looked it up and found the chords. never played much in the way of sharps, so its actually a good exercise for me to learn some more chords, and as many can't be played in 2 or even 3 finger mode, good practice stretching as well.

what an incredible chorus.... if you don't know this one, check it out.

[Dave Caulkins]

I actually prefer to look at them as flats (Bb is more 'normal' than A#). It's originally done, I believe, with a capo on the third fret starting with 'G' as the tonic chord.

Nevertheless, it isn't that bad in the 'odd' key on mando if you're using 'closed' chords...

Dave

[ira]

are you saying the chords i have are wrong.

way too much for this theoretically bereft mando player, but i'll trust ya!
ira:p

[Dave Caulkins]

No, not wrong... just named funny (A# is Bb... D# is Eb... etc.). A# is considered a pretty 'far out' key (is it really ever used?), and is usually called Bb - which is more common.

Sorry to confuse... I tend to do that to people sometimes...

It's part of being weird

Dave

[Gibby]

Not only the hardest working man in show business, but a darn good song writer!...."....it's better than moonshine....damn sure better than rain..."

[dwmand]

I just released my new CD, Soul's Engines, and it happens to have an all acoustic version of "Soulshine" on it.
I decided to play Hawaiian Weissenborn slide guitar on it, so I let Rich Zimmerman of Slipstream play his Nugget mandolin on it.
I also asked Mollie O'Brien to sing it with me as a duet, since the lyrics seem to fit nicely.

There's a soundclip mp3 sample of the song on my website:

http://www.dwightmark.com/SoulsEngines.htm

Thanks. Dwight

[mando bandage]

Played it at our hobo jam last weekend, in, you guessed it, Bb.

Great song to do some mando embellishments on at the end of the lyric lines in the chorus.

R