Bar Room Blues is an exclusive series of video guitar lessons by Steve “Red” Lasner covering classic blues songs from historically great guitarists like B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, and many others. A new lesson will be released each week, so be sure to subscribe and check back often! Also, if you want more guitar lessons like these, be sure to check out Red’s Guitar Sherpa class.
“Sweet Home Chicago” is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson. Over the years the song has become one of the most popular anthems for the city of Chicago despite ambiguity in Johnson’s original lyrics.
The authorship of the song is a matter of some dispute. The musical atmosphere of the blues and folk community of the 1930’s lent itself to considerable borrowing of music and lyrics back and forth. Reportedly, songs recorded by bluesmen Scrapper Blackwell and Kokomo Arnold bear striking similarity to “Sweet Home Chicago”, having been recorded years before.] Leroy Carr’s “Baby Don’t You Love Me No More” (Scrapper Blackwell played
The list of artists who have covered the song is immense, including Junior Parker (who had a #13 R&B chart hit in 1958 with the song), Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Earl Hooker, Honeyboy Edwards, Freddie King, Luther Allison, Johnny Shines, Keb’ Mo’ with Corey Hart (singer), Foghat, Status Quo, Johnny Otis, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Blues Band, and The Blues Brothers, while The Replacements and Los Lobos each covered it live but never released it. LaVere once remarked “It’s like ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ to the blues crowd.
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Guitar Lesson
Check out the tab and jam track below, and give this bar room blues song a try yourself!
Tab
Jam Track
Bar Room Blues is an exclusive series of video