Hello and welcome to this week’s harmonica lesson where I will be showing you how to play Boogie Chillen by John Lee Hooker. This is actually a version played by Hakan Ehn which you can listen to further down the page.
You will need a harmonica in the key of D and we will be playing in 2nd position in the key of A major.
Click here to get the tab for Boogie Chillen
Boogie Chillen Licks
Practice playing each lick slowly along to the audio clips below. You will quite possibly need to spend quite a lot of quality time breaking the licks down and playing them painfully slow. I would play them around 60bpm until they sound smooth then gradually speed up to full speed.
Backing track
Here is the backing track for you to use as a reference.
Click here to get the tab for Boogie Chillen
Hakan Ehn’s Version
Here is Hakan Ehn playing this tune – it is insanely fast and sounds awesome!
Thank you
Thank you so much for taking part in this lesson. I hope it was useful for you. If you enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and/or Twitter.
If you have any questions just send me a wee email.
Happy harping and see you next Wednesday for the next lesson!
Hi Tomlin,
As always, a great lesson -well constructed and articulated. It got me a lot closer to playing the song the way I want to.
I love this song in all the versions I’ve heard, but especially the version from “Hooker and Heat.” The part that baffles me is Alan Wilson’s solo from 6:00 to almost 8:00. For me, it might be the coolest solo I’ve heard (probably an exaggeration with both Walter’s, both Sonny Boys and so on out there), but it is awesome. I do hear some of that in what Hakan Ehn does, but there is a feel to Wilson’s solo that really grabs me.
Thanks again
Hi Rich – I’m glad you enjoyed the lesson :-). I’ve not heard that version. I will check it out! Cheers, T
Great lesson Tomlin.
I,ve got all the licks pretty much down…just trying to get it all together at speed..very tricky!
Thanks again
Tell me about it! It was a nightmare getting up to speed for me 🙂
Thanks for the lesson. Could you say something about the structure of the song. It’s not your usual 12 bar boogie pattern. What is it?
Thanks Ingo, it is a one chord blues.