How To Play Boom Boom | The John Lee Hooker Way

Hey, how’s it going guys this is John McLennan with Guitar Control, bringing you this video lesson and we’re looking at “Boom Boom” by John Lee Hooker, this is a great riff to learn going through a 12 bar blues. I actually had the pleasure of playing with John Lee Hooker Jr. at the Central Oregon Blues Festival, when I was on tour in Oregon. His guitar playing was just so phenomenal I remember after the jamming, there was this after party show and we ended up playing until like four in the morning or something. I went up on stage, and playing his guitar player was just a monster, he had his marshal stack so loud, that the full thing almost cranked all the way up.

Anyways, this is a great riff we should learn, what I did is, I combined the main riff with the bass line so you can play it, and it sounds like the full song. The first riff that we’re starting on the second fret and we’re sliding up to the fourth and we put our first finger down and then you slide back down from the fourth to the second.

Check the image above to follow the chords and tabs.

Just a typical blues sound there, and then I play the bass line which is zero, four, zero, two, zero, so that together sounds like this, and then you do this phrase that’s two, zero, three, two , zero, two, zero, two, and then same lick going to an a,  then riff number two again, and then b7 and one, two, four, two, then on that same note, and that’s just pentatonic two, zero, two, zero, zero, and you can start back over at the top again. It’s a great tune to learn, take it slow rift by riff and you can always omit if this is too hard omita, let the baseline play because that’s what John Lee Hooker does on the recording it’s very loose on the timing of it. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and we’ll see you in the next lesson, thanks for watching.

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