Gospel Blues Songs & Chord Progressions

I’m currently exploring the Gospel modules by Davell Crawford and trying to immerse myself in the old school gospel style, particularly songs in 6/8 time with walk ups and turn arounds.

I’m trying to get a few songs under my belt and came across this one

It’s a 1, 6, 2, 5 progression in Db however there are a few walk ups/turn arounds that are not too familiar to my ears.

Hoping someone can assist with figuring out the voicings used in the following places:
00:44- 00:49
00:50 -01:00

Hey @solomon23.st :wave:

Here’s a short video with some voicing analysis:

I’m not familiar with the song and so to give you a definitive answer on the original harmony vs. the passing chords, I would need to study it and listen to more versions.

The analysis above should put you in the right direction.

As I mention, the first walk-up progression is a very common harmonic movement found in blues and jazz standards:

Eb → F-7 → F#dim7 → Eb/G

This would suggest a tonal centre of Eb Major, but the song finally resolves to Db major, so I’m unsure exactly how that progression fits into the form of the song, but that’s certainly what I’m hearing him play!

For reference, here are a couple of tunes which use that progression:

I hope helps Solomon and have fun exploring the gospel blues style!

Hayden

1 Like