Re: Cruel Willie
Originally Posted by
stringalong
Anne --- hello -- this is a really old post! I wonder if you are still on the MandolinCafe site these days? I come around now and then. I've played Cruel Willie, tune only, on the mandolin for quite some time now. A fiddlin' friend wants to learn it. Thanks for these great links. I'm going to ask my mandolin teacher this week what those cool chords are. Kenny and Amanda's band plays it in the Key of F. It looks like maybe the guitar players have capoed up. I can't tell if the mandolin player is using a capo or not. I play it in D. For Part A, I hear straight D G and A, though in slightly surprising places. I think there's a Bm near or at the beginning of Part B. Whatever the other Part B chords are after that, I'm not so sure.
OK, so I know I'm replying to an old reply to a really old thread. But in the first video posted by the OP, the chords I hear in the B part are walking from Bm to A to G (vi - V - IV) and back to the root D. That gives it a very modern pseudo-bluegrassy sound to my ear.
I much prefer a straight old-time version version of this tune with only two chords (I and V), with the fiddle tuned to DDAD. Howdy Forrester got it right:
Keep that skillet good and greasy all the time!
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