![alices-restaurant1[1]](https://iggydonnelly.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/alices-restaurant11.jpg?w=300&h=300 "alices-restaurant1[1]")
After a quick search at the WSU website, I found that Jerry Hahn was at WSU as recently as 2007. I don’t know if he is still teaching there or not. He was (if he is not currently) a full professor of Jazz Guitar. A friend of mine told me that Professor Hahn had something like 12 hours of college credit. His professorship was awarded to him based on what he could do rather than academic hoops he had jumped through. This seems a lot more egalitarian than I usually think of academia as being.
You’ll note that I added a page – which has the same title as this thread. On this page is Hahn’s tabulature for Alice’s Restaurant. This tab is a Wichita guitarists’ phenomenon. My copy, I am guessing, is pobably a 100+ generation xerox copy. Because of my scanning skills, it is not p0ssible to cut and paste the tab. If you are motivated enough to try this challenging version, you should be motivated enough to hand copy the tab.
Hahn was a jazz guitar master and a very demanding teacher. My short story favorite about Jerry Hahn was that in the 60’s he played in a jazz band in San Francisco. For a two year period of time during his San Francisco residence, he did not wash his hair.
Some of you will remember Hahn’s 1970’s rock band, The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood. Their song “Captain Bobby Stout Done Found me Out” played on KEYN exclusively in the early 1970’s. Captain Bobby Stout was a real person and was the head of the Wichita Police Dept’s vice squad. Stout was also the unofficial foster father of a young man named Don Johnson – who would later gain fame on the television show Miami Vice.
Wichita is so small that everyone and everything connects together in at least a tangential way. I will try to answer any questions on the tab. Since I bought my Epiphone, I think playing this song is remotely possible for me now.
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
I remember the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood and the song. I guess that makes me as old as dirt. Today I feel like it.
Wicked,
You are as old as dirt, only if I am. I am not, today, any way. Have to go see my doctor later, he may have different idea.
I remember a group, can’t remember the name, who played here in Wichita back in the late sixties-early seventies. Had a great flute player, and a kick-ass guitar player. Played a few Jethro Tull tunes. I took some lessons from the guitar player. Anybody remember who?
Bobby Stout and Vern Miller. They were a pair.
Bobby Stout is a friend of mine! I am his pet “super-liberal.” He works for the Kansas Crime Commission now, helping educate and support law enforcement officers.
There has to be considerably less than 6 degrees of seperation between the people of Wichita.
Just a few things on tabs. Tabulatures are not music staffs, rather they represent the guitar strings and where notes should be fretted. They tell you the notes, but they don’t tell you the time – you have to know the tune, for these to work. Most tabs are done on real popular songs, so this latter limitation doesn’t matter too much.
Strings from top to bottom. Alice’s Restaurant is in Standard Tuning which from the top line to the bottom line is as such:
High E
B
G
D
A
Low E
There are Chord notations listed – most people try to finger the strings consistent with those chord shapes.
This is very introductory, but may be helpful to the completely uninitiated.
http://www.guitaretab.com/g/guthrie-arlo/7628.html
Chords, etc..
You know, Jammer, the above tab from the internet, is pretty close to Hahn’s version. His is a little fancier, but I am thinking your version would be easier to play. Thanks for sharing.
I took a summer guitar calss from Hahn during the early 70s at WSU. All I remenber is he was a rather strange person, and how to fingerpick the Beatles “Blackbird”.
I used to know “Blackbird” but have forgotten it. I’m betting it would not be hard to get a tab off the internet.
Guitar tabs, another great thing about the internet.
Believe it or not, I still have the original Hahn written tab for Blackbird. I have small hands and some of the fingerings were a real stretch!
My hands are not little, but yes, that song stretches you, so to speak.
Another finger style song that sounds good and is relatively easy to play is “316” by Van Halen. It’s an A chord that one slides up to a D chord and that is the central part of the piece. It has an almost “classical guitar” sound to it. It was a solo instrumental on the “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” album.
Eddy Van Halen was a much bigger talent than he was ever given credit for, IMHO.
And to think I used to know some of those chords. (sigh)
Those metal strings were murder on my fingers. My fingers are fairly long, but at the age of fifteen, they didn’t have a lot of strength.
Oh, to have my guitar again. I don’t have a clue what happened to it. Last time I saw it was 2001 in my mom’s storage shed behind her house. Two moves later and much sent back to the farm to be sorted through, and there’s no telling where it might be. Okay, it wasn’t fancy. Just an acoustic. But it was mine.
Thanks, Jammer. That is almost exactly how I learned it.
Me and my bud, Eric (Clapton), like those A chord songs.
Here’s a tab for Blackbird:
http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/b/beatles/blackbird-tab.shtml
I have noticed that on the free tab sites, their ads are often of the “how to get a ripped body” variety. I guess they are assuming their traffic will largely be adolescent males. That is probably a safe assumption.
When it comes to music, I play the radio.
Thankfully, I am good at it. Guitar, not so much.
Same here on the guitar. I used to play the piano. I started taking lessons when I was about 6. Years and years later, I even had one of those big keyboards. That ended when the kids accidentally dropped it from the top bunk bed. 😦 I played the flute in high school. Four years of band. I wanted to play the cello, but it’s a good thing I didn’t. Small town schools have bands, not orchestras.
OK. I have to throw my memories of Jerry in here. I too took Jerry’s college guitar course. I never did get “Blackbird” down. Here’s a bit of Jerry Hahn trivia for you:
Jerry married a girl who was in my high school graduating class (Derby, 1969)Her name was Stephanie Melroy. She was very beautiful.
One more memory: Jerry is a great guitarist, but couldn’t sing a lick. My classmates and I would often ask Jerry how some song’s lyrics went with the music just to try to get him to sing. LOL! God, he was a horrible singer!
Class of 1969. There’s no better than that. 🙂