Old Joe Clark is the tune that teaches modal honesty. Play it from an A major scale and it goes bland; the melody insists on G natural — the flattened seventh — and that one bent degree is the whole mountain sound. Our arrangement declares its key as A mixolydian outright, and the CI check would fail the tab if the G naturals didn’t genuinely belong to that scale: the mode is load-bearing, not a flavor note.
Playing it
The melody hammers the open A course like a banjo drone — give those repeated As an even, patient right hand rather than an impatient one; the tune’s character is insistence, not hurry. The G natural falls at the fifth fret of the D course, right under the ring finger, and the low E–G pickup into it is the arrangement’s only trip below the A course: let it growl. Phrase ends land on A every time, which is what makes the tune feel inevitable at any speed.
Where it leads
Compare the A mixolydian map with plain A major and find the one square that moved — hearing that difference is a permanent upgrade to your ears. Backers should know the tune’s signature chord move is A to G, the mixolydian giveaway. Cripple Creek shares the key without the bent seventh; play them back to back and the mode stops being theory and becomes a flavor you can order on purpose.