Tag: Blues

Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning is inspired by a train. So, the number one priority is keeping a propulsive rhythm up.

Intro: Starting off with the riff, which is fun to play. Well worth learning, even if you’re not bothered about the rest.

The intro is a bit off-kilter. You’d expect the riff to repeat twice or four times. Instead, it repeats three times.

Verse: The verses combine the melody with little bits of the riff. I’ve tried to distinguish them by having the riff played in the open position (e.g. bar 9) and the melody played up the neck.

Solo: I’ve kept this simple to match the vibe of the original harmonica solo. But you can always fancy it up if you feel like it.

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Today’s post was prompted by Douglas and Stephen who requested a bit of slide ukulele. I was trying to think of which song to do when I watched the new Assassin’s Creed trailer that features a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s Soul of a Man and immediately got to work on it.

Slide playing is noisy at the best of times. I wrote a whole ebook about playing slide, but the number one tip for slide playing is to mute everything you’re not playing. Mute everything behind the slide with your index or middle finger (or, even better, both). And mute any string you don’t want to hear with your picking hand.

It’s mostly standard slide playing. But there is a little trick in bar 4. There, you need to angle the slide so you’re playing the A-string at the 10th fret and the C-string at the 11th. Mercifully, the vibrato there means you’ve got a bit of leeway in hitting the notes.

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