Learn all the versions and you’ll be covered. As you can imagine, it’s been played by many, many bands and everyone does it a little differently. Of course, finding someone who can sing it like Wicked Wilson Pickett will be the challenge.Īnyway, here’s a few of versions of the song. So it is something you can add to your song list in no time. It’s basically just the 3 main blues chords… 1, 4, and 5. It just about always gets a crowd going.Īnd yes it is a very simple song to learn. If you plan on making a living as a blues musician, you’ll need to play Mustang Sally at some time or another in your career. Every blues band should have it somewhere in their repertoire, if for no other reason than to get that tip jar jumpin’.Īnd of course, the hard-core blues fans in the audience will poo poo you for playing it. It’s just one of those songs that gets any crowd going and can create instant rapport with your audience. But that wouldn’t get you very far with the audience.īut who cares. Now you could argue that it’s not really even a blues song. Just one approach and definitely mix up playing changes with the blues scale.If there’s one song that is requested perhaps more than any other song at a blues gig, it’s probably the great Wilson Pickett song Mustang Sally. That all sounds a lot more complex than it is and of course that's not how you'd play a solo, but it will get you started outlining the changes. One thing to practice is voice-leading those chord tones through the changes: I-IV-I-V-IV-I in D would be F# F F# G F F# OR, starting on the 7th of the D7 chord: C B C C# B C. Same with the V7 (A7) chord: Go to C# or G. That won't sound bad, but to really sound the change, go to the third or seventh of the chord (B or F). When moving to the IV chord, you said you were emphasizing the note G (the root of the chord). Remember the 3rd and 7th of the chord are what define the chord, so you can use those tones. Play the arpeggio, starting on an upbeat: F F# A B, then on to either C or D. One thing to mess around with is playing a leading tone from a half step below into the maj 3rd (so F to F# in this case). So if you are biting or raising the tone even slightly sharp, it won't sound good. The maj 3rd of the I7 chord in a blues sometimes needs to be played a hair flat to sound right.
What is the rest of the band playing? If for some reason the guitarist is playing a minor chord instead of the maj triad or dominant chord that he should be playing, then of course the maj 3rd (F#) won't sound good. I have been listening to a lot of Lee Allen lately, a lot of his stuff is not really complicated but he adds the attitude to make it awesome.Ĭlick to expand.It "should" sound fine, being the 3rd of the chord, but there are a couple of reasons why it might not. I am getting kind of bored of what I play and I am looking for some cool stuff as a launch pad for me to do something new. I tried to work in some major pentatonic stuff but it does not seem to work well to my ear. I tend to play a lot of blues type stuff in D minor. I play it on tenor and I have kind of locked into a particular style when I play the solo. My question, do any of you have your own versions that you are willing to share or know of versions on the internet that have killer sax solos? I looked on youtube and there are a bunch of videos with people playing sax solos of varying qualities, some are pretty bad. We play this song regularly in the rock band I am in and it always gets a big response. Too bad, the audience has ruled that it is a hit. Yeah, I know this song is over played and a lot of you on this site do not like it.