Lockdown Licks no. 66
“Smokestack Lightning” by ‘Howlin Wolf’ Signature riff played on a Fender Stratocaster with middle pickup selected, volume on 8, treble bass, mid at 7 and a touch of delay to create a slight echo. Original played by Hubert Sumlin.
“Smokestack Lightning” is a blues song recorded by Howlin’ Wolf in 1956. It became one of his most popular and influential songs. It is based on earlier blues songs, and numerous artists later interpreted it.
Wolf had performed it in one form or another at least by the early 1930s, when he was performing with Charley Patton in small Delta communities. The song is “a hypnotic one-chord drone.”