C-F-C-F-A-D

• OVERVIEW •

Mighty Mississippi bluesman Albert King (1923-1992) played a right-handed Flying V left-handed, but (unlike his young mega-fan Jimi Hendrix) chose not to restring accordingly…thus leaving everything ‘upside-down’. He experimented with several different tunings over the course of his career, eventually coming to use this layout towards the end of his life (as per his friend and tech Dan Erlewine: discussion below).

 

John Mayer described King, one of his string-bending idols, as “the reason guitarists break high Es” – understandable, given that King rarely used one himself. Instead, his slackened setups were designed to ease the fluency of his signature high bends and fine-touch vibrato. (n.b. The bass sides of his tunings are somewhat moot: King almost always confined himself to the high side, barely ever touching the 6str. Anyway, it’s all playable in Standard.)

Pattern: 5>7>5>4>5

Harmony: F6 | 5-1-5-1-3-6

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Reports of King’s tunings vary. As per Alan di Perna in Guitar World: “It may have been the open slide-guitar tunings of players like [Blind Lemon] Jefferson and [Elmore] James that inspired King…He is mainly associated with an Emin tuning [C-B-E-G-B-E: 11>5>3>4>5]. But he also tuned to the same intervals [with a 6str of] C# and D, [and] was known to use Open F [C-F-C-D-A-D: 5>7>2>7>5] as well”.

 

Hal Leonard’s Albert King Guitar Play-Along book transcribes various core tunes in ‘Drop D lowered 3 semitones’ [B-F#-B-E-G#-C#: 7>5>5>4>5], including Born Under a Bad Sign, Crosscut Saw, and Funk Shun. However, Hal Leonard’s tab book The Very Best Of Albert King explains that, based on analysing (unspecified) concert footage, “we present [King’s] tuning as follows: D-G-D-G-B-E down 1 1/2 steps”. This gives B-E-B-E-G#-C# [5>7>5>4>5: the same shape as our C-F-C-F-A-D layout listed above]. And I’ve also seen C#-G#-B-E-G#-C# [7>3>5>4>5] cited amongst fans, alongside numerous transpositions of the previous patterns.

 

Given that King himself liked to switch things up, settling on an exact pattern isn’t really the point here. Rather, we should take heed of his general tuning principles: including a propensity for retaining Standard’s Perfect 4th jump between 2-1str (ideal for bluesy bends) – and, also, the Major 3rd between 3-2str (in fact, I wonder if the CFCDAD tuning above, as the only one which breaks this pattern, might be a misprint of the more accessible CFCFAD: after all, D is a strange 3str wind). And, despite his love for radical slackening, he preferred thin-gauge strings, especially in the treble (according to Dan Erlwine, his longtime tech and the constructor of his famous ‘Lucy’ Flying V, King used a .009-.050 set when playing in CFCFAD: a far cry from SRV’s ultra-heavy .013-.058 in Eb).

• (n.b. CFCFAD tuning has also been put to use by others: e.g. San Holo on Show Me. Also see the artists listed on my Menu page for Drop DG: i.e. the same pattern but 2 semitones higher).

---

• Born Under a Bad Sign – Albert King & SRV (1983):

---

“Holding a right-handed electric guitar the ‘wrong’ way around…yields a different perspective: one that is, in a way, more in tune with nature, with the low strings closer to the ground…But even upside-down, some of King’s open tunings are mighty strange: which also accounts for the unique beauty embodied in some of his phrasing…King also enjoyed ‘lefty advantage’ when it comes to bending notes. With the strings’ vertical arrangement flipped, you bend notes on the critical higher-pitched strings by pulling…downward, which is much easier than pushing upward.” (Alan di Perna/Guitar World)

---

 

Born Albert Nelson in Indianola, Mississippi, King spent much of his childhood singing gospel in church, and picking cotton to supplement the family income. His first instrument was a home-made ‘diddley bow’ – although he was eventually able to purchase his own guitar for the princely sum of $1.25. Soon, he was playing it around Arkansas, leading to a stint in local act The Groove Boys (“We only knew three songs, and we’d play them fast, medium, and slow: that made nine songs. Somehow that got over all night long“), as well as tours further afield and session work (occasionally on drums too). Around this time he gained the nickname ‘Velvet Bulldozer’ – in reference to his daytime role driving one on building sites as well as his 6-foot-4-plus, 250lb frame (‘in his hands, a Flying V looks like a ukulele…’).

 

The success of songs such as I’m a Lonely Man (1959) and Don’t Throw Your Love On Me Too Strong (1961) led to his signing by Stax in 1966. The following year, backed by Booker T. & the M.G.s and songwriter William Bell, he released his label debut – Born Under a Bad Sign – forever cementing his place as a colossus of blues history. The album, compiled from five separate sessions, arrived at a near-ideal moment to fuel the late-60s blues booms in the US and UK, influencing countless psychedelic string-benders – notably including Jimi Hendrix (who cited Crosscut Saw as one of his favorite tracks), Stevie Ray Vaughan (who toured with King in the early 80s: see above), Mike Bloomfield (who “drafted huge chunks of King’s fiercely original style into his own playing”), and Eric Clapton (a.k.a. The King of the Delta Variant, who “famously nicked the solo from King’s Oh, Pretty Woman and inserted it in Strange Brew”).

 

---

• Blues Power (Fillmore East) – Albert King (1970):

---

“When I finally got Albert King to Stax…They were blown away by his singing and, of course, his guitar playing. But [also] just blown away by him. There was something about Albert King. He was a standup guy with a temper but a great sense of humor. He had come up in East St. Louis, from that hard-living environment. And that toughness and passion for survival was in every breath he sang, and every note he squeezed out of that guitar.” (Al Bell, Stax Records)

---

 

In a humorous, illuminating interview conducted shortly before his death from a heart attack in 1992, King recounted his path through gospel, R’n’B, blues, funk, and beyond: “I never made a decision to change my style. Some of it I forgot, some of it just automatically changed. Nothing can stay the same forever. I’ve always been a lover of jazz…I used a lot of orchestration [to mix] swinging jazz arrangements and the pure blues guitar. I play the singing guitar, that’s what I’ve always called it, [and] also sing along with my notes: it’s how I think about where I’m going…I can play chords, but I don’t like ’em, don’t have time for them. I’m paying enough people around me to play chords! The bent note is my thing, man, and I’ll put one anywhere it feels right. There are no rules.”

 

---

• The Sky Is Crying – Albert King (1980):

---

“First, you got to get in your mind what you want to play. If you hear a good lick…and you feel it, then hit another one, and another one, and another one. The next thing you know you got 15 or 20 different licks you can hit – and they all feel good. But if you rush…you’re not even going to know what you did. You’ve got to take your time, and learn your bag one lick at a time. And take your time in your delivery.” (Albert King)

---

• NUMBERS •

	6str	5str	4str	3str	2str	1str
Note	C	F	C	F	A	D
Alteration	-4	-4	-2	-2	-2	-2
Tension (%)	-37	-37	-21	-21	-21	-21
Freq. (Hz)	65	87	131	175	220	294
Pattern (>)	5	7	5	4	5	–
Semitones	0	5	12	17	21	26
Intervals	5	1	5	1	3	6

• See my Tunings Megatable for further such nerdery: more numbers, intervallic relations, comparative methods, etc. And to any genuine vibratory scientists reading: please critique my DIY analysis!

• RELATED •

—Associated tunings: proximities of shape, concept, context, etc…

• Drop DG (this +2): the higher, tighter, less bend-friendly
• Open F (this with 1str -2): moving Open G down by two
• Albert Collins Fm: another bluesman’s bendy approach

• MORE INFO •

—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…

• Albert King: more on the life of the legendary bluesman via Tim Sampson in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and Alan di Perna’s aforementioned Guitar World feature (“King was known to pack a gun, so people were reluctant to cross him. But his hot temper was only one aspect of a complex and gifted artist. Erlewine puts the anger down to a combination of impatience and competitiveness. ‘I’d say Albert was more competitive than…the older folks out there…As a person, though, Albert had a softness and kindness inside. But he kept it hidden a lot’.”) – as well as an interview with Alan Paul (“For 45 minutes Albert answered my questions, though when he considered something foolish or misguided, he shot me a look that could freeze a volcano. He was patient, professional – and every bit as intimidating as I could have imagined, which somehow made me happy. His personality fit his music to a tee; no one has ever played the guitar with more authority or focused intent”), and a 50-minute audio interview with the man himself from 1982 (“Albert is funny, cranky, open, sincere, candid about the state of the blues, brutally frank in parts…”).
• Upside-down guitar: in King’s words, “I knew I was going to have to create my own style…because I couldn’t make the changes and chords the same as a right-handed man could”: check out other sinister setups via my tuning pages for Lefty Flip (EBGDAE: i.e. ‘Standard in reverse’, like a lefty axe), and Tritones (6>6>6>6>6: the only non-unison tuning that preserves ‘lefty involution‘: i.e. the ability to turn the guitar upside-down and play all shapes the same way without altering the harmony) – as well as the other ‘upside-down-lefty’ guitarists mentioned by di Perna (“King is arguably the monarch of…a distinguished company that includes Otis Rush, Doyle Bramhall II, Elizabeth Cotton, and Coco Montoya in the blues-folk realm, and everyone from Babyface to Bob Geldof in other genres…”)

---

Header image: Albert King with his famous Flying V