Here’s my definitive, 3 part look at how to play the Chuck Berry classic Johnny B Goode.
Part 1
Part 2
Part3
So I’ve finally got round to looking at a bona fide guitar classic. It’s one of those songs that everybody seems to play slightly differently (that includes Chuck himself who in the live performances I’ve checked out never seems to play it the same way twice). So what I’ve done is gone back to the original recording, to try and get the definitive answer to how it should be played. As an exercise I think it’s fun to try and get as close as possible to how Chuck plays it here, but really it’s up to you how far you want to take it. Probably the most important thing is to play with a bit of style and attitude, and not to worry too much about every last detail of the original.
Notice how the original recording is made up of two different guitar performances. It sounds to me like there’s one continuous guitar part, probably laid down by Chuck live with the band, and then there’s another overdubbed layer of lead guitar which comes in and out at various points during the song. The intro is in fact made up of two different guitar tracks: the first four bars are the original live guitar take, then the overdubbed lead guitar takes over as the band kicks in, and the other guitar switches to playing rhythm. I’m combining both the lead guitar parts into one here.
In Part 2 I looking at all the rhythm guitar parts, together with a few of the lead guitar fills. As I mentioned in the first lesson, the original recording is made up of two separate guitar performances. There’s the continuous live guitar take which is made up of mainly rhythm chords, and then there are the lead guitar overdubs which you can hear in the second half of the intro, during the choruses and in the solo. If you’re playing with another guitarist you could split the two parts between the two you, but if you’re playing on your own why not try combing the two parts into one?
The basic rhythm guitar part is pretty straightforward: a blues in Bb played entirely using a bass note boogie type pattern. This just stays the same throughout the song. It’s just the introduction which is slightly different. For the choruses I’ve combined the lead and rhythm parts into one. Each of the three choruses has a slightly different lead guitar part.
For the 3rd and final lesson in my JBG series I looking at the guitar solo. As with the intro, the solo is made up of two different guitar tracks which I’ve combined into one. The first 4 bars of the solo are the main live guitar part, then the overdubbed lead guitar takes over until the end of the 12 bar chorus. And it’s the same pattern during the second half of the solo.
Putting it all together…
If you’ve come this far it would seem silly not to try and play the whole song from start to finish. It’s really just a matter of getting used to the structure and piecing together all the parts we’ve looked at so far. To help you with his I’ve put together a PDF with the music/tab for the entire song as you might play it as a single guitar performance. Complete Song PDF.
You could practice this by playing along to the original recording, to a backing track or by playing with real human beings if you have any to hand.