King Of The Road | TAB
Initially, I tried to turn King Of The Road into an acoustic guitar arrangement, focusing on building from that bass line.
I gave up as I sounded like a guitar player who wanted to play bass.
Instead, I’ve developed 5 ideas for how to strum these chords in a band that has a bass player. The first four are in Bb, the last in B.
They are all identical rhythmically, but the chord shapes differ.
My goal is that you learn all these, then improvise what shape you use throughout. Here’s idea 1, we use the A shape, C shape and E shape.

Next up, idea 2, we start in the same way but then move to a C shape for the F, an E shape for the Bb, and an A shape for the Eb.

For idea 3, we are using the E shape for the Bb and A shapes for the Eb and F.

The final idea for the key of Bb starts with the C shape for the Bb but maintains the previous A shapes for the Eb and F.

As we switched to the key of B, I was again tempted to change the concept to playing mainly bass lines, perhaps I should buy a bass and start doing some gigs again…
After regaining focus I realised that wasn’t working. Here’s a simple concept showing you how we can do everything you did in Bb in B.

When all examples feel easy, aim to improvise what area of the neck you play in. If you do this in gigs, you’ll improve tremendously.
King Of The Road TAB | Related Pages
King Of The Road | Chords + Lyrics
You can learn to play King Of The Road by Roger Miller using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| Bb | Eb | F | Bb |
Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
Roger Miller tunes
Roger Miller started out as a songwriter in the ‘50s and released his own tunes in the ‘60s. In the ‘70s, he went back to being a songwriter again, now for Disney.
His best-known tunes include Billy Bayou, Oo-De-Lally, Dang Me, England Swings, and his signature song, King Of The Road.
Roger Miller on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm features TAB and covers King Of The Road. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.