Ed,

I think you will find more success in learning this tune if you use a D-Modal tuning on your guitar. This is also known as DADGAD, because those are the notes to which you tune the strings, left to right is bass to treble.

This tuning gives you a flavor described as a mix between minor and major.

The basic chord is to fret the G-string on the second fret. An alternate chord is A-string third fret with D string second fret.

The alternative is work around in the key of Dm.

I dislike playing this song so much, that I only do it a capella. Then I get the guitar part perfect. I also love it a capella, so that helps, too. It really has that "high lonesome sound."

If my memory serves me well (and it sometimes doesn't), Eric stole the tune for this song from some other Appalacian tune. The story of this song, I believe, is thatThe Highlander Folk Center had engaged several folk singer/singer songwriters to come to the Appalacian Mts. to learn of the miner's plight and to write songs. This tune was one of them. I believe Tom Paxton was also there and wrote a haunting tune whose title I don't recall. The chorus goes "Oh,the .... may not get you, the fire may pass you by. When the gas goes up, it might not be your time to die. But each day it gets harder to take a simple breath. When the black lung gets you, that's the kiss of death."

Roger in Baltimore

Roger in Baltimore