YES, I meant G#, not Gb! Oy, I’ve been mistakenly thinking of it as Gb this whole time. Reminds me that I need to actually think the notes as I play them. I can play it from memory now, so I haven’t looked at my notes in ages, and I wrote it down as Abm and Ebm.
For the bridge, I’m pretty sure it goes between G#m to D#/Ebm, as it took me ages to be able to play those chords. These are how I’m doing them:
Abm Ebm
4
e|--|---2---|
B|--|---4---|
G|--|---3---|
D|--|6--1---|
A|--|6--x---|
E|--|---x---|
I also posted a recording here, but that’s with a capo to transpose it a bit higher for my voice. Another CalRCV volunteer recorded a bass track in the original key for me, so I’m planning on going with that and just recording the vocals earlier in the morning when I can usually sing that low.
I actually hadn’t analyzed the song that closely, as it was one of the first I learned and only has 5 chords. For some reason, I just kinda figured it was in E because that was the first chord, but of course you’re totally right that it’s actually in F# mixolydian!
So, if I do the G# blues scale, that’s
G# B C# D D# F# G#
And the D is the only note that doesn’t fit F# mixolydian, but it’s the blue note already, so it actually feels right to my ear that it doesn’t fit.
But if I want, I can switch to the F# mixolydian, right? Seems like the Eb blues scale would also work, as again the only note that doesn’t fit F# mixolydian is the A natural, which is again the blue note.
Thanks for all your help and advice. I took a little bit of jazz piano theory but never got far enough to actually solo smoothly, so I am probably at the point where I know just enough to be dangerous.