Here’s Part 2 of my in-depth look at Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode. In Part 1, I checked out that iconic introduction; in this lesson I’m looking at all the rhythm guitar parts, together with a few of the lead guitar fills. As I mentioned in the previous 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. All of that is written out below. Download a high-quality PDF here.
Got all that?
Then I’ll let you have a go at the solo. Part 3 here.