Tutorial: Jack's "Smokestack Lightning" from VH1's "Ball and Biscuit"

Jack's "Smokestack Lightning" from VH1's "Ball and Biscuit" Tutorial. Less well known, is that he uses this riff to play Tommy Johnson's "Cool Drink of Water" live.

This is the basic form of the riff. It can certainly be modified. I've seen/heard a lower E note before the high E at the start--you could play the second fret D string E note right before the open high E if you wanted to experiment with the timing. My personal preference is to play it with a fuller sound--I like to either start with an E chord or the high E and B strings together (and then end the riff with the E chord).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• smokestack
• lightning
• basic
• riff
• white
• stripes
• ball
• and
• biscuit
• VH1
• jack
• tutorial
• cool
• drink
• of
• water

[skooleskool]

i'm pretty sure the smokestack lightning riff was inspired from the likes of john lee hooker etc. 

[WonderLure42]

@skooleskool Howlin Wolf

[skrobeck]

Dont call it "Jacks" -it's not jack's, it Howl'n Wolf's

[WonderLure42]

@skrobeck: the riff formation Jack uses; not the writing of the riff. Wolf used a higher key.

[Trevguy00]

damn that is an awesome easy to learn lick thank you very much!

[WonderLure42]

Yeah, it's a cool one, isn't it? Fun to play and throw into any 1-4-5 blues song based on E.

[claytoncoyne]

Big Muff t-shirt? Nicely done sir.

[MrDarknightRaider]

song made by howlin wolf fuck yeah

[secretagentYTer]

I can imagine a non-guitar player seeing your shirt and wondering why the hell you have a shirt that says "big muff"

[CletusColtrane]

@rwebb61

Lol, wrong......It's not Chesters riff, it's Huberts

[CletusColtrane]

It's Hubert Sumlin, you need to go back to blues school

[supatavi]

@skrobeck It's Hubert Sumlin's riff

[kstoughton]

Nice big muff shirt

[GilliganRocks]

@WonderLure42

No, Wolf's version is in the same key of E

[reesemitchell]

SMOOOOOOOKKKEEE SAAAATTCCCKKKK LIGHTINGGG!!!!

[bkershaccount]

can you please do a lesson for the song ball and biscuit. there are only covers and the tabs are crap. please!

[co11egeboy]

Thank you!