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The Year That Clayton Delaney Died

by Tom T. Hall • Lesson #132 • Feb 8, 2018

Practice Notes 2 pages

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About This Lesson

In this video I’ll show a tutorial for the classic country intro lick heard in The Year That Clayton Delaney Died by Tom T. Hall. Even if you’ve never heard this song before, I’ll bet the style of this intro lick is one you feel like you’ve heard a thousand times. It uses only two chords, but requires a bit of practice to pull of… I’ll show you how it’s done, complete with some tabs and exercises to break things into small pieces.

Update: On February 4, 2025 I updated my practice notes to show the step-by-step exercises that build up to the intro riff. I also added a few zoomed playthrough videos — which are available below. These show the two approaches I use to play the intro riff (simplified & full), as well my suggested tips on strumming the full song.

Intro Riff - Zoomed Playthroughs

Here’s a few updated videos (recorded in 2025, many years after my video above) where I show zoomed, slow playthroughs of the intro riff. Each playthrough is played twice, then I give a few additional tips afterwards. Remember to see my practice notes for additional guidance in a print-friendly format, tabs and exercises included!

Simple Version

This uses all the bass notes from the main riff, but simplifies all the light strumming that happens in between. I recommend starting with this if you’re just getting into this riff.

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Full Version

This takes the same bass notes as the simple version, but adds constant down & up strumming (in between the bass notes) to match what Tom T. Hall is playing. This one is trickier, as it requires pick accuracy and a light touch… but sounds great when you get it under your belt!

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Strumming the Full Song

Finally, I added this video showing how to strum the full song. I show two ways to do this, including my recommended approach where we’ll strum with alternating bass notes. Even if you don’t play the intro riff, you can have fun singing this one! See my recommended lyric sheet linked above.

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Tom T. Hall’s Album Recording

Give it a listen if you want to hear how it sounds when he plays it! Remember to add capo 1 to play along with him, using the chords I teach.

Good stuff here! Notice he uses accented up-strums throughout each verse — which add a nice plucky sound to things.

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