Crazy Creek — Mandolin Tab

Mandolin tab and sheet music with synced audio · Tommy Jackson · Key of Am · 95 BPM · 4/4 time · Bluegrass · Intermediate

Chords used in this arrangement: Am, E, C, F.

Have fun playing Crazy Creek on the mandolin. This song is fun to play and the guy who wrote this tune, Tommy Jackson, was basically the invisible backbone of classic country music. He played on records by Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, and George Jones, yet almost nobody outside the industry knew his name. Musicologist Charles Wolfe called him "the most heard, and the most imitated, fiddler of his generation," and he originally cut Crazy Creek for a series of square dance albums in the late 1950s, the kind of records local callers would spin when they needed music without a voice getting in the way. The tune got a second life when the Dillards recorded it with fiddler Byron Berline, and that version is what most bluegrass players know. Keep an eye on the key shift. The A part floats in A minor/Mixolydian territory, then the B part jumps to C major, which gives the whole thing a nicely unsettled, restless feel that matches the name.

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.