In this lesson we're going to take a look at some of Chuck Berry's bluesy introductions that he used for four of his blues songs. The first one is from wee wee hours, just like the second song for song we recorded for Chess Records. It's in the key of G. And it starts out like this. And what he's doing here is very similar to one of the turnarounds that we've already looked at. This time is played on the first and second strings. And I've got my first finger, it's just the first position G. So my first finger is on third fret first string, then my pinky is gonna start on the sixth fret of the second string, and then we're just gonna pick a second for a second and then put the ring finger on the fifth fret of the second string.

Drop the second finger on the fourth fret And then wind up with the first finger on both the first and second strings at the third fret. So we got this little bass riff there. Now if I when I listen to the original recording, I hear this. Then that last note, I hear low bass, I have no idea what's going on there. And possibly the bass player is doing that. Or, I don't know maybe there's another guitar playing that I have to be a drop D tuning to be able to get as low of a sound as I hear.

What I do there is just double up on the D at the fifth fret of the fifth string at work. So the whole intro again, for wee wee hours. Maybe that's what he plays and the bass is just on top of that. I don't know but that's a very typical simple little blues turnaround you play over the first position, blue Xbox, and other Chuck Berry song with her kind of a neat blues introduction sort of a T bone Walker like thing is a song called I'm just a lucky so and so. And he starts out with this little chord introduction something like this and then into the one. So here's B flat, the song is in B flat, and we're going to go to a G ninth chord.

So if you remember that shape, we've learned the shape before, it's going to play a G nine and then an F sharp nine. And then instead of going to the five, which would be an F ninth, so it goes I'm sorry, that's a G nine. I'm confused now. g nine F sharp nine F, there we go. Instead of going to that F, he's gonna hammer one time on the bogie base for the B flat which is on the sixth and the eight strings. Really neat.

So one more time. So that is introduction for Chuck Berry's I'm just lucky so and so. Got a couple more bluesy introductions for you. One is real simple. It's from Chuck Berry's version of sweet 16. It's in the key of G. And I think it's Chuck playing this part.

I'm not sure it could be Mac guitar Murphy, I don't know. But this is what's being played something like this into the song. So what he's doing, it's in the key of G. So he's playing over the high g blues box between the 15th and the 17th frets and he's got this. So I'm doing this double stop from the 15th fret to the 16th fret of the third string and I'm picking the second string as well as I hammer on Even sounds like maybe not the first time he does it but the second time around, he gets the first string as well. Then he plays the same figure over the first position C chord, which is our four, then it goes back. Just that little smear.

Song gets ready to go to the five and then when it goes to the five, he doesn't play the double stop pattern. He just lightly strums a D chord, I think a partial f shaped D. I'll play it one more time all the way through. Sweet 16 into the, into the song. Really simple, but I always love that intro. That's one of my favorites. Now one more before we go and this one's a little more complex.

This is from a later Chuck Berry song called I've got a booking, and he's playing it in the key of E, which we haven't seen Chuck Berry do so much and you play something like this into the song. So what I think he's doing is he's taking either a beach B seven shape or just the E seven which would be the easy way to play it but I think I hear that. I hear almost the full chord shape there. So I think he's taken a B seven shape. So you make a B seventh chord and then you're going to slide You're gonna pick the third string and slide to the fourth fret. And then with an upstroke, you're gonna get the first and second strings.

So that's the first part. And that actually sounds like he plays it like this. So when he gets a slide upstroke, and then a downstroke Oh, third string before he slides back down. So that first part, you've got the trouble strings. And he's gonna go sounds like it goes to an a double stuff with the first finger on the fifth fret of the first string, ring finger on the sixth fret of the third string, you might be playing that whole a shape or something like that, but I just hear the first and third string. So we've got this He's gonna go back to that.

Slide it real fast back to the second and first frets. So the whole thing sounds like he's gonna just get the treble strings or maybe the fourth string second fret and an E chord shape. So we've got this sound like that. The open strings. Let's play the whole thing so far. And then the turnaround.

I don't know if Jack's playing this or the second guitar is playing this, but I hear this little bass right It's kind of weird, it doesn't go all the way down here. So he starts out hammering on the second fret of the fourth string 123 and then he's gonna start this goes to the fifth fret, keeping my first finger on the second fret of the of the fourth string. I go to the fifth fret of the fifth string. I can use the ring finger when I hear there's an open sixth string, so we got that second fret of the fifth string, maybe that's not what he's doing, but that's what I hear. So on the turnaround something like that strange, quick sliding beam knife cord off between the second fret, fourth fret and back So let me try to play the whole intro for I got a booking slowly into the song.

So if I didn't get that exactly right that is pretty darn close and I don't know whether he's got the whole B seven shape sounds like that that sound like just the seventh shape which is a D seven just moved to the fourth, third and fourth threats. It's one of the more interesting intros that Chuck place and he does something similar on a couple other tunes but this is the most intricate version of this, this kind of introduction. So there are four bluesy Chuck Berry introductions for it.