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Mr. Bojangles

by Jerry Jeff Walker • Lesson #307 • Jun 21, 2020

Video lesson

Licensed Song Sheet 2 pages

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Editor’s notes

Hey friends - here’s a guitar lesson teaching you how to play Mr. Bojangles, originally written and released by Jerry Jeff Walker in 1968. This tutorial will give you the chords, strumming patterns, and chord progressions that will also work for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 cover, if you’re more familiar with that one. This song is in the key of C, and uses a very common descending bass-note walkdown in 3/4 time. Nothing too complicated – but even for the more difficult chords (F and D7/F#), I’ll show you some hints to simplify things. I hope you enjoy!

Timestamps for this lesson:

  • 0:00 Lesson overview
  • 2:10 Capo & chords shapes
  • 8:59 Strumming patterns
  • 14:41 Chord progressions
  • 18:46 Full playthrough (capo 2)
  • 23:49 Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, and Key West

Capo Notes

Capo 2 to play along with Jerry Jeff Walker
Capo 7 to play along with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

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