Old Joe Clark

This tune blew me away the first time I heard it--which was when I heard it played on fiddle by Byron Berline at his fiddle shop in Guthrie, OK.  Somehow this flatpicking equivalent of "Bile 'Em Cabbage Down" got past me until I'd already been flatpicking for several years.  When I mentioned to my jamming buddies about the great tune I'd heard called "Old Joe Clark", they looked at me like I had popcorn shooting out of my nose.  That was when I learned that this was considered a hackneyed beginners' tune.

I like it anyway.  Last year at the national flatpick championsip in Winfield I heard two masterful guitarists play amazing versions of it (Jake Workman and Dan O'Callaghan), so I guess I'm not alone.

Old Joe Clark 150 bpm
Old Joe Clark 160 bpm
Old Joe Clark 170 bpm
Old Joe Clark 180 bpm
Old Joe Clark 185 bpm
Old Joe Clark 190 bpm
Old Joe Clark 195 bpm
Old Joe Clark 200 bpm
Old Joe Clark 205 bpm
Old Joe Clark 210 bpm
Old Joe Clark 215 bpm
Old Joe Clark 220 bpm
Old Joe Clark 225 bpm
Old Joe Clark 230 bpm
Old Joe Clark 235 bpm
Old Joe Clark 240 bpm
And a zip file of all tempos (47.1 MB)

The chords go like this:

| A  | A   | A  | E  | A  | A  | A E | A  | (x2)
| A  | A   | A  | G  | A  | A  | A E | A  | (x2)

or with a capo on the 2nd fret:

| G  | G  | G  | D  | G  | G  | G D | G  | (x2)
| G  | G  | G  | F  | G  | G  | G D | G  | (x2)

 (stage patter stops at 0:38)