Learn to play J.J. Cale's Magnolia on Guitar and Harmonica

Seydel Gecko

The Seydel Gecko Harmonica Holder is high-quality. Seydel offer much more flexibility. You feel comfortable while playing harmonica with this holder. Great design; simple to use; changing harmonicas is quick and easy. The position isn't friction dependent, but rather on a "stop," you get a consistent, easily adjusted rack. The leather pads not only make it more comfortable, but also reduce slipping.

Single notes on the harmonica sound best for this.

The guitar rhythm is straight quarter notes with a nice single note melody connecting the chords.

The Guitar Essentials, Harmonica Essentials, and Rhythm Guitar and Strumming courses can help with any difficulties you're having.

• Guitar Essentials Course
• Harmonica Essentials Course
• Rhythm Guitar and Strumming Course
• Harmonica Cheat Sheets

Quick Facts

1. Appears on the album Naturally released in 1972
2. A number of songs from the album have been hits for others -- After Midnight, Eric Clapton; Call Me The Breeze, Lynyrd Skynyrd; Clyde, Waylon Jennings
3. JJ Cale changed his name from John Weldon Cale to J.J. Cale to avoid confusion with John Cale of the Velvet Underground

Video Translation

Hi, George here. Welcome to this video where I show you how to play Magnolia by JJ Cale on guitar and harmonica. So let's start off with the guitar chords. We have FMaj7 which is done like this. And C. Then in the bridge we have Am and G.

Now for a strumming pattern you can keep it pretty straight playing on the down beats 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4.

So when you're going from the C to the F there's a little run that you can play I'll show you here. Start on FMaj7 for 2 measures and then C and on the 4th beat play C D E E F G A.

For the harmonica, we're in the key of C. It's starts off in FMaj7 but it resolves to C so I am using a C harmonica Hohner Special 20. You can play that little lick that the guitar is playing on the harmonica. It's a diatonic progression starting by blowing on the 4th hole then.

Here's the harmonica tabs for that:

4 -4 5 5 -5 6 -6.

OK, so why don't we just put this all together and play through the song. I'll put a harmonica solo that is the same as the melody and we'll wrap it up after that.

Alright, Magnolia by JJ Cale off the album Naturally. We had 4 chords there and we're in the key of C using a C diatonic harmonica. And, yeah that's a pretty straight forward song so I hope you can use that to put that together. It's a great song.

If you don't know the album, check it out. It's Naturally by JJ Cale. It's just a classic. It's got lots of great songs on it - After Midnight, Call Me The Breeze.

And if you made it this far in the video then I think you must have enjoyed it so please hit the like button down below if you're on Youtube, subscribe to my videos, send it off to Facebook friends, all that good stuff. Alright, so have a great day, peace, see you next time.