Acoustic Delta Blues Moves - Page 5

by Jim Burger Charlie Patton's "Pony Blues" is a classic and probably his best-known song. The real signature part of this song are the E7 arp runs that are used repetitively, as in measures 3, 6-7 and 10-11. Charlie really snaps the bass strings to get a heavily percussive sound out of them.

In the actual song, the E7 arp runs don't change much, but Charlie uses a variety of E7-based melodies in the first 2 measures of the 12-bar progression and a couple of different approaches to the A7 in bar 5 (if somebody writes me asking for it, I can put others up, but for now I'm lazy and it's late). Note also the little E blues-scale riff in bar 8, which is kinda similar to the one on the previous page.