“Chilly Winds” belongs to a wider household of American blues, folks, and old-time songs that draw on related floating verses and phrasing, with origins which can be murky. Yow will discover different members of this household below titles like “Lonesome Highway Blues,” “Going Down That Highway Feeling Dangerous,” or “Lay Me Down a Pallet on Your Ground.” The model I first discovered has a haunting, bluesy melody in the important thing of A and comes from the taking part in of North Carolina fiddler Tommy Jarrell (1901–85), who in flip discovered it from an older native fiddler when he was in his teenagers. 

The way in which I play “Chilly Winds” has drifted slightly from Jarrell’s model, although it shares the identical DNA—I discovered over time that dropping a phrase and adjusting the underlying chord construction gave it an apparently totally different spin. I’ve additionally modified the important thing from A to D: by taking part in in D Dorian (D E F G A B C) utilizing dropped-D tuning, I’m capable of create a deep, wealthy sound with the low D be aware whereas additionally utilizing the open excessive E string so as to add a subtly spooky coloration over the tonic chord. (It’s additionally approach simpler for me to sing on this key, as I do on the model on my current album, Alone Will Inform.)

There are a few methods I take advantage of right here which can be value elaborating on. First, as I choose by the melody, I strive not solely to carry some model of the underlying chord—letting these chord tones ring—but additionally to keep up a backbeat strum on the decrease strings, which provides a way of drive and momentum. This was impressed partially by watching and emulating clawhammer banjo gamers, whose elementary bum-ditty stroke entails an analogous strum, or brush, on the backbeat. 

Secondly, when the tune switches to the dominant chord (A7), I need to strum sure chord tones and allow them to ring (say, the low open A be aware and the excessive open E). Nonetheless, if I held down a full A chord to bridge the hole between these, I wouldn’t have sufficient remaining fingers to play the melody. As a substitute, I take advantage of some fretting-hand muting to create the impact of a full chord with just one finger—my first finger, along with fretting the A on the second fret of the G string, can also be strategically positioned to mute the D and B strings. This enables me to strum from the A string by to the excessive E whereas producing solely three notes (A, A, and E, forming an A5 chord).

On this condensed association, I play by the 16-bar kind 4 occasions, holding the fundamental gist the identical however including variations as I’m going. This can be a typical method in old-time music: the tune tends to include a comparatively temporary kind that repeats time and again, with curiosity coming from making a deep groove and making refined improvisational modifications reasonably than from longer compositional constructions or instrumental solos. There are many methods to maintain issues contemporary—push or pull a key be aware, fill in a leap, stretch a run, or strip a phrase all the way down to its bones.

There are two methods to entry the musical notation and tab for this tune: Be a part of our group at Patreon.com/acousticguitarplus OR buy the Might/June 2025 situation of Acoustic Guitar journal (you will discover the notation on web page 59).