The Crawdad Song - Solo Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar

This is my arrangement of an old American Southern folk song called ‘The Crawdad Song’, also known as ‘The Crawdad Hole’. I recently found out this song meant something to a dear departed relative of mine, so I wanted to give it a go as a fingerstyle arrangement, partly as a tribute, but also simply because I liked the song! I had no idea before learning it that a ‘Crawdad’ is in fact another word for Crayfish, and the ‘Crawdad holes’ in the lyrics of the song refer to mud chimneys that reside along the banks of the Mississippi river. Apparently, an open top steeple forms in which Crayfish can be caught using short sticks with a line and bait attached. The earliest recording of the song that could be considered in any way commercial seems to be the Big Bill Broonzy recording, but it’s also been recorded by notable musicians over the years such as Woody Guthrie and Oscar Peterson. I based my arrangement on the version by Clint Howard, Fred Price and Doc Watson, the latter being a personal favourite guitarist of mine. Their arrangement is more in a bluegrass style, so that’s what I went for with this cover. It’s a simple tune but I think therein lies its charm. I played it in dropped D and put in an improvised ‘solo’ section, but otherwise largely kept to the main melody of the song, with some lead lines and sting bends here and there for effect. Annoyingly, one of the machine heads on the guitar was loose which I didn’t realise when recording, and it’s picked up a bit of a buzz through the mic. Due to the nature of the song though, I thought this adds a rustic element to it in a way, so I didn’t worry too much about it or try to re-record, filter or EQ it out.