I'm so glad to see this wonderful thread again, and to re-read every word.

For the record, I think it's time someone provided the chord progression as it's generally known, probably Bob Coltman's or very close. This is what makes this song so distinctive and momorable, what made it become a "jam-band anthem."

I think this bit of harmonic structure ranks right up there with Dave Van Ronk's arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun" as the a couple of the greatest creative achievements of the American folk revival. In both cases, a relatively ordinary traditional song, a simple melody that could easily have been sung over a very conventional 2- or 3-chord arrangement, is completely transformed by an original, and very inventive, chord progression. Both works are pretty obviously the product of a mind accustomed to thinking in terms of chords, and seem to have been written on and for the acoustic guitar.

(DVR's transformation of "House of the Rising Sun" is, of course, the version much more widely known as recorded first by Bob Dylan and later by The Animals.)

So, for anyone who doesn't already know it ~ "I Know You Rider" in D:

. D                   C       G       D
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone

. D                   C       G       D
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone

      F         C          F               A
Gonna miss your daddy from rollin in your arms...

Another similarly "underground" song that was truly folk-processed during the early electronic age of the '60s, becoming hugely popular thanks to a fun-to-play guitar-chord progression, was the garage-band staple "Hey Joe," eventually made most famous by Jimi Hendrix. There's a great Mudcat thread (or maybe more than one) about "Hey Joe," tracking down its nearly-forgotten creator, and discussions of how it became a "live-band" favorite without ever making much of a splash as a commercial recording.

Now, "Hey Joe"'s chords are simple and obvious to anyone who took Music Theory 101 ~ a plain-vanilla circle of fifths. Dave Van Ronk's arrangement of "Rising Sun" and Coltman's of "Know You Rider" are something else again: each distinctive, original, and irresistible.

And neither one of them made a dime for its creator. I think that qualifies these songs as "real" folk music.