OK, so those of you who are fans of Marshall Tucker know that Toy Caldwell, besides
just a smoking hot guitar player, also played a few other instruments, namley Pedal Steel.
Away my Blues was presented on the "Dedicated" Album. I have seen a lot of requests for
piece and even went looking myself. This has a lot of changes in it, but the chords
all standard blues chords, yet its not your basic 1-4-5 banger, it has a texas swing /
feel to it, but the underpinings aer all blues.
This is tabed from The Live in New Jersey DVD. This was only a few months after the
death of Toy's brother Tommy, who was the bass player. Franklin Wilke, a long time family
and bass player stepped in to fill some pretty damn big shoes.
This song consists of Toy's Peddle steel work and George's Rythm guitar. There are no
solo's, but Toy's fills everything out with the peddle steel. I wont even attempt to tab
out since I know nothing about them other then they sound really nice.
The tune opens with Toy doing a interval slide from G6 to E6 giving it a strum at each
so thats G6 F#6 F6 E#6 E6. The tune then gets rolling with a Texas swing beat and the
is E6 & A7.
E6 F6 F#6 G6 A7
1 ------------------------------------------------------|E
2 -2--3--4---5--8---------------------------------------|B
3 -1--2--3---4--6---------------------------------------|G
4 -2--3--4---5--7---------------------------------------|D
5 -2--3--4---5--7---------------------------------------|A
6 ------------------------------------------------------|E
After the intro, thats where standard blues comes in, the chords are
- E, C#7, F#9, B7, G#7, A, D9
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/m/marshall_tucker_band/bob_away_my_blues_tab.html ]
E C#7 F#9 B7 G#7 A D9
1 -9---9---9---7---4--5--5------------------------------|E
2 -9---9---9---7---4--5--5------------------------------|B
3 -9---10--9---8---5--6--5------------------------------|G
4 -9---9---8---7---4--7--4------------------------------|D
5 -7---11--9---9---6--7--5------------------------------|A
6 -X---9---X---7---4--5--X------------------------------|E
So those are the chord shapes to play this. The real genius is how
Toy put these together. If you just play those chords in the order they are presented
will be off to a great start. lets put the chords over some of the lyrics and you will
able to put this together. Its a short song with a very sweet feel. If you wanted to
and play a nice solo into it I would suggest using full verse as that song is layed
in tight verses. From the intro, the first word of the song is sung on the A7 as shown above.
A7 E C#7 F#9 B7 E B7
I'm goin down to the river, got my cane poll in my hand
E C#7 F#9 B7
Got my red worms, in this maxwellhouse coffee can
E G#7 A D9
I'm gonna sit back under a shade tree by the river bank where its cool
E C#7 F#9 B7 E
I'm gonna close my eyes and dream and let cork bob away my blues.
Now then to play and sing this your gonna have to learn to sing it just the way Doug
sings it. Toy Caldwell was quite happy to shoehorn lots of words into the same timeing, so
the last verse it seems like you have lots of time between E and C#7, but you really
you have to fit all of that in in just a touch more then you had with the first verse.
So there you are, another MTB song for you to work on. Now if you really want to get
down MTB style, go out and **buy** the DVD, listen to it, watch them play it and you will
what I mean.
