Country Guitar Lick in the Style of Merle Haggard

Hey, everybody this is Darrin Goodman with Guitar Control, I want to give you a quick little Country lesson in the style of Merle Haggard, a little chunk of the guitar solo from the song. It’s actually a Johnny Cash song.

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Check the image above to follow the chords and tabs.

We’re starting off on the 6th fret of the 2nd string with my second finger and I’m on the 5th fret of the 1st string with my first finger and I’m going to pick the 2nd string and do a bend up a full step and then hit the 1st string and do it twice. Then we follow it with the 7th fret of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd string with my third finger, and bend twice.

Then you play the 6th fret of the 2nd string again, and then you do the other three notes. We do that and bend it twice again, and we do a slide from nowhere to the 10th fret of the 1st string with our third finger and then follow that with the 10th fret of the 2nd string and then with our first finger, we go back to the 7th fret of the 2nd string and play that 3rd string 7th fret as well.

It’s the bend slide to 10, 10 on the 2nd string and then 7 on the 3rd string. Next you go down and you’re going to do like an open F chord F major except we’re doing F sharp, so we’re on the 4th fret of the 4th string with your third finger, 3rd fret of the 3rd string, second finger and 2nd fret of the 2nd and 1st string with your first finger, you strum that chord and slide the whole chord up a half step.

So you’re sliding from an F sharp into a G and then you do a down stroke and slap the string, and then do it again, and then an upstroke of just the 1st two strings twice, but on the second time instead of doing the upstroke of the 1st and 2nd strings you do the 4th and 3rd string.

Then we move and do an open D chord but flatten it a half step and do that same exact picking sequence. You’re going to start it off half-step flat so you’re third fingers on the 2nd fret of the 2nd string and your first fingers on the 1st fret of the 3rd string and your second fingers on the 1st fret of the 1st string.

We’re going to pick, slide into D and do that same picking sequence we did with the F sharp. Then from D you’ll go up, move your first finger up and do an open A chord, so you’re barring across the 2nd fret of the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings of your first finger and you’ll do that twice. Follow that with the 3rd fret of the 5th string with your second finger to the 4th fret with your third finger and then back to the A, you knew the A twice, so you follow that with the 3rd fret of the 5th string again, and do a slight bend like a quarter steps bend to a D.

The final closing lick is 5th string open to the 2nd fret of the 5th string with a slight bend to the 4th string open twice, back to the 2nd fret of the 5th string. Again, slight bend open and then finally goes to the 1st fret of the 6th string with your first finger and a slight bend there and ends with a D.

I hope you enjoyed that believe it or not I’m actually a big fan of those Old Country players like Merle Haggard, and Jerry Reed. I’m hoping to do some more of this stuff in the future, so make sure to subscribe on our You Tube Channel and we’ll see you in our next video lessons, thanks for watching.

How to play your favorite songs from the 60's & 70's on the guitar

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