key for "Born Under a Bad Sign"?

May 1, 2008 10:58 AM

Beginning guitarist here. Can someone tell me what key Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" is in? The album version, please.

My guess is F# since that's what note the groove starts out with. But I know nothing about these things, so don't laugh at me too hard.

posted by tremolo1970 to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Best answer: It's C#.
posted by timeistight at 12:02 PM on May 1, 2008

...assuming by "album" you mean this.
posted by timeistight at 12:24 PM on May 1, 2008

Seconding C#
posted by rocket88 at 1:06 PM on May 1, 2008

Response by poster: Actually, by album I mean this. But I listened to the previews for both sounds and I think they're the same.

Thanks for the responses.
posted by tremolo1970 at 1:53 PM on May 1, 2008

Response by poster: not sounds, songs
posted by tremolo1970 at 1:54 PM on May 1, 2008

Albert King played a weird open tuning, upside down, and tuned way down too. So his style can be kind of hard to mimic at first, in regular tuning. But with super light strings, and tuning down a bit, it's not too hard. A good deal of his playing is just a MASSIVE bend from fourth (F# in your case) up as far as it will go, at least to the G# if not further, then hang on to it as long as you like, and then release, and play the F#, then down to the E. All on the top string, in either octave. And something very similar on the second string. Almost everything is played on the top two strings.

Obviously there's way more to it than that but the basic 'Albert King Blues Box' is very simple.

There's a tab here that might be helpful.
posted by unSane at 3:59 PM on May 1, 2008

I believe I read in a guitar magazine that Albert's guitar was tuned to an open E minor chord. Although other pages I Googled suggest it was an E minor 6th open tuning.

Either way, he was always tuned to the key of KICKASS.
posted by Rykey at 7:15 PM on May 1, 2008