Big River

The Grateful Dead gave their fans a rich education in Americana through their choice of cover songs. My first exposure to Johnny Cash was almost certainly the Dead’s cover of “Big River.” 

Johnny and the lead guitarist (I think Luther Perkins) are fingering in E, but the recording sounds in F, so I guess they are tuned up a half step. I have always experienced this as a cheerful and energetic song, because I focus on the groove and the melody and don’t think too hard about the lyrics. But when I played it for my kid, he said that the chorus was the saddest thing he had ever heard. Don’t let that Johnny Cash deadpan fool you, he’s describing a miserable situation.

I first heard the Dead do “Big River” on Steal Your Face, but that version isn’t especially good. I didn’t start loving the song until I heard it on One From The Vault.

The only thing this has going for it as a vocal performance is enthusiasm, but Jerry’s guitar sounds fantastic. Before we get into the details, let’s compare the versions.

Johnny Cash:

• 180 BPM
• Widely swinging eighth notes
• Key of F (played in E with a capo or tuned up)
• Guitar solos are over twelve bar blues
• Chorus only at the beginning and end

Grateful Dead:

• 240 BPM
• Almost straight eighth notes
• Key of A
• Guitar solos are over the regular song form
• Chorus after every verse

Jerry’s approach to this kind of tune draws heavily on Roy Nichols‘ playing with Merle Haggard.

Jerry also admired Don Rich’s work with Buck Owens (though sadly, he did not take wardrobe inspiration from them).

James Burton was probably an influence too.

Here’s a treat: Jerry and James Burton jamming with Elvis Costello in 1989.

While Jerry absorbed a lot of country mannerisms in his playing, he isn’t exactly a country player. He’s more linear and bebop-like, more unpredictable, and messier. Let’s dig into his first solo on “Big River” from One From The Vault and see what he’s doing exactly. Here’s my transcription with tab. Weeping Willow Guitar Lessons has a tutorial on the solo, and I defer to his interpretation of the fingering.

Online guitar bros describe Jerry’s playing on this kind of tune as being based in Mixolydian mode. Weeping Willow describes the base scale as A minor pentatonic. These are both reasonable starting points, but it’s better to think of Jerry as playing in a combination of A major and A blues. He freely mixes C-natural and C-sharp, and plays G-natural more often than G-sharp. He also uses string bends to explore the region between D and E.

The chords to “Big River” are simple, but not uninteresting: just A, B, D and E (not in that order.) The D and E are the IV and V chords in A major, those are not very mysterious. The B is a secondary dominant, acting as the V chord in the temporary key of E major. You want to make sure to play D-sharp over the B chord, and maybe B and F-sharp too. Jerry does exactly that.

It’s especially interesting to look at how Jerry plays over the E chord. Western tonal theory teaches us that the most important note in that chord (other than E) is G-sharp, the leading tone in the key of A. This note creates a pull toward the tonic, giving the E chord a tension that gets relieved when you resolve to A. However, Jerry only plays G-sharp over an E chord once in the solo. He usually plays G-natural, for a bluesier and less “tonal” sound. 

The solo goes through the form twice, and each half of the solo through the form feels like a self-contained entity. The first half divides neatly into two-bar phrases with call-and-response structures like pairs of bookends. At 1:11, Jerry repeats a short phrase with nifty rhythmic displacement. At 1:17, Jerry concludes the first half with a phrase that disrupts the flow when it resolves down to A a beat and a half early. The second half of the solo has the same phrase structure, but it isn’t a linear flow of eighth notes, and there are bigger interval jumps. At 1:27, there are some strange triplets surrounding longer notes.

I won’t go deep into Jerry’s longer second solo, but we can talk broad strokes. It’s less orderly, but it builds energy to the point of near-explosion. You can feel Jerry fighting the form a little at the end, wanting to spill past it, but instead he pulls back and comes in for a landing in time for the last chorus. 

If you want to improvise like this, I suggest playing as slow as you can stand. Definitely don’t try playing fast until you can flow through the changes totally effortlessly at a medium tempo. I mean, try if you want, but don’t spend a lot of time at it, you’ll hurt yourself. Jerry put a lot of hours into running scales and patterns slowly, with patient attention to his fingering and articulation. He doesn’t sound like a mess at 240 BPM because he ironed his technique out at 60 first, then at 120. Playing fast is fun, but you get there by getting confident playing slow.