Banks of the Ohio — Mandolin Tab

Mandolin tab and sheet music with synced audio · Key of D · 120 BPM · 4/4 time · Bluegrass · Starter

Chords used in this arrangement: D, A7, G.

Banks of the Ohio is actually a murder ballad dressed up in a pretty melody. I used to play this as a kid and had no idea it had such a dark side to it! A 19th-century unknown songwriter wrote Willie's dark little story about him taking his girl for a riverside walk. She turns down his marriage proposal and things go badly from there. What's wild is that it's essentially the same plot as "Pretty Polly," right down to the villain being named Willie. The two songs are so similar that some folklorists think they might actually be the same song that drifted apart over generations. The first recording didn't surface until 1927, when Red Patterson's Piedmont Log Rollers cut it, and from there everyone from Doc Watson to Olivia Newton-John has taken a crack at it. In D on mandolin, the melody sits really comfortably in first position. Enjoy the contrast between how sweetly the tune flows and how dark the lyrics actually are.

This page includes mandolin tablature, standard music notation, and a chord chart — printable as PDF and playable in sync with the original recording. Change the key, slow the tempo down, and loop the bars you want to practise.