NOTE: Jerry Reed’s health is very bad and declining, and this video goes out to him with love for changing, and probably even saving my life with his music.

On that note, wish Jerry a Happy Birthday here. Sadly, Jerry Reed died August 31, 2008, and will be missed by all of us.

Okay, so I dragged myself to SPBGMA last month and it was great fun, with tons of jamming. But there is only so much bluegrass and banjo playing a person can stand, even me. Someone there had asked me if I had tab for Jerry Reed’s Sassy, a great newer guitar tune of Jerry’s, and I said I had always been too lazy to figure it out, and that I just played the Craig Dobbins version of it. I was never satisfied with Craig’s version though. I don’t know why he wrote it out the way he did, though I’m sure he had a reason (see note below). He is ten times the guitar player that I am.

But once I got to thinking about it, I decided I’d better figure out a version of my own that is closer to my ear to what Jerry does with the tune. So, one afternoon at SPBGMA, I took refuge in my room, put my banjo to bed, and sat down with my guitar and Reed’s recording of Sassy and transcribed it as well as I could. I found some cool stuff he does in there!

Note: Craig Dobbins was kind enough to contact me about his transcription, and it turns out he had not been satisfied with it either. He had re-thought it some time ago and includes a different page with some changes in new copies of his book. The subject of perfectionism reminds me, by the way, that I took some liberties in my transcription of adding a few notes that Jerry doesn’t play. In measures 82 and 83 there are three bass notes that are played by the bass in the recording, but I threw them in because they fill out a solo version and are easy to play. Also, in the part beginning in measure 37, I use several three finger pulls to get the chords, but it just sounds best to me that way for solo guitar. I think Jerry probably does it with the two finger (right hand) chording that Craig notates in his version. Okay, those are my disclaimers.

People ask me all the time if I can really play any of this music that I transcribe, so I practiced this one up for a few weeks and made a video just for the heck of it. There’s also an mp3, if you like it enough to want to hear it again.

Like the previous transcription, this one too is in swing time, but in this case, since I have a video for you, I just wrote it out in straight eighth notes (I guess they’re really sixteenth notes) which makes it a lot easier to read, but you get the idea, about swingin’ it up a bit. I think I play the notes (not the timing) pretty close to the transcription in the video, but there’s a little noodling around at the beginning and end - and probably some other minor departures.

Here’s an mp3 of the video - it will probably have better quality sound than the video, if you’re interested:

So, that’s Sassy, the way I hear it. I hope you enjoy the video and the mp3, and if you play guitar, I hope you’ll download the tab and take this one on. It’s really not hard to play, and it’s a blast. How does Jerry write this stuff??

Download: Sassy tab here     (Note: If you have not downloaded this tab since 3/9/08, you do not have the latest version)

(in TablEdit Format, which you can download a free viewer for)

Enjoy!