Working Bass Lines Johnny B Goode - first-bass-and...

Working Bass LinesJohnny B Goode

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WORKING BASS LINES - JOHNNY B GOODE by CHUCK BERRY

Johnny B Goode is one of those songs that qualifies for the words ‘hoary old stan-dard.’

But I wanted to include it in this series because the origi-nal Chuck Berry version is very different from how it’s played by most cover bands.

Most cover bands play this tune as a straight 8th note

rock belter - but if you listen to the original you’ll hear that it’s a lot more subtle. That’s because of three things: the feel wasn’t so driving; the bass line was played on upright bass; and the person playing that upright bass was the late, great Willie Dixon.

If you want to get an idea of a rockier version, I transcribed the Johnny Winter version (with Tommy Shannon on bass) in Issue 201. So you could always refer to that. The Johnny Winter version was in B and the Chuck Berry version is in Bb. A lot of cover bands play this in A though...so be prepared to trans-pose!

We’re going to look at the main sections of the tune and see how Willie Dixon approached this. First up is the intro with the iconic guitar riff:


The next section is the Verse - that looks like this:


Note here the use of the 5th on the downbeat of the F7 chords in Bars 9 and 10. Also note the use of the upper register too!

Here’s the chorus - go Johnny go!

The final section we’re going to look at is the ‘Stop’ section plus guitar solo. That looks like the section below - and note that I’ve got the first 4 bars of the next one of these sections tagged on at the end too. After that, feel free to use ideas suggested by Willie’s line for ‘vamping’ out on the rest of the tune!


Paul’s Note

I’ve notated this out as a ‘swing feel’ track - but the original Chuck Berry version is much more subtle. If you go and have a listen to it - and pat out the rhythmic subdivisions with your hand - you’ll find that the intro and verse sections are ‘straight 8th note’ and the guitar solo and chorus-es are swing 8th note!

But note the use of the word ‘subtle.’ At this tempo the difference be-tween swing and straight 8th is marginal - and I’ve never played it live where this difference has been put into the performance! At the tempo most bands play it live you’ll probably do best playing it with a straight 8th note feel.


How To Program The Sections In Band In A Box

If you want to work on this slowly with Band In A Box and build up to performance tempo so that you can then play along with the record, here’s what I suggest:

1. Set the Key to Bb2. Use a tempo of 150BPM 3. Set a real track style. I used the Texas Rock And Roll Rhythm Section. It’s a little more frenetic (esp. the piano) than I’d like...but it does the jobfor practicing.4. Mute the bass!

Here’s what the intro should look like:

Here’s what the basic kind of verse/chorus should look like:

And here’s the kind of programming you can do for the ‘stop’ section with the guitar riff:

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