How to Play Catfish Blues, ZZ Top – Main Riffs & Solo

Learning how to play Catfish Blues by ZZ Top is going to improve your blues guitar playing immensely. Billy Gibbons is a great blues player and listening to him play is akin to listening to the best blues guitarists in person. His style is so archival and rooted in the early blue’s that any ZZ Top song you learn is going to make you a better player. That’s because when you learn a ZZ Top song you’re getting Billy Gibbon’s cliff notes from the years that he spent perfecting old blue’s songs.

I recommend you download the tablature for this song here, and follow along as you watch our YouTube lesson. Below you will find the ZZ Top video that I transcribed, and immediately after you’ll see our video guitar lesson!

What makes this song even better? All of the licks are based in the key of E and you’ll learn how to use the minor pentatonic scale with the blue note. The blue note is the added note to the normal minor pentatonic scale or the flat 5th. In the key of E, this flat 5th is going to be a B flat note. Any of these licks that we learn today can be easily transcribed to a different key, simply by moving the scale to the corresponding bar chord location on your guitar. It’s that simple. No new fingerings. No thinking required.

Don’t Be Fooled, This Song Is Hard!

All of this said, learning how to play Catfish Blues is challenging. If you’re an intermediate to advanced guitarist, there will be licks that you recognize and licks that are new to you. If you’re a beginner, be ready to have your brain scrambled by the guitar solo. Don’t let this stop you though. Take on the challenge of learning the solo, you will be a better guitarist for it. I recommend you practice with a metronome and slow the song down. Build your speed slow and steady. I haven’t played anything this fast in a while. If it makes you feel better, even the teacher had to get the metronome out for this song.

I’m going to break this into 5 different parts. We’ll start by breaking down the song’s introduction, then look at the licks behind the first verses. After, I’ll walk you through the guitar solo. We’ll take the solo one line at a time. I encourage you to learn the solo in these bite-size pieces. If you need to learn it in half-lines, do it. This is going to take a lot of muscle memory.

I’ll take you through the last verse of the song, and I’ll break down the final guitar solo. There will be no chord charts in this post since the entire song is in the key of E, and to be honest Billy Gibbons doesn’t really strum any chords. “Chords?!?! We don’t need no stinking chords!!”

If you’d like me to create a rhythm guitar backing track, let me know in the comments or send me an email! There are some very simple rhythms you can play along with the bass if you’re in a 4 piece band.

1. The Introduction

The introduction to Catfish Blue’s is real slow, and probably the easiest part of the song. Our main lick is played on the 2nd fret of your guitars G string. You simply give it a half bend, release the half bend, and then pull it off to the open note. You do ALL of this by only picking the string once! This lick comes back several times, so this is important for you to focus on and get familiar with. You’ll notice that Billy Gibbons doesn’t play any of these lines the same way twice, and that is the mark of a fantastic guitar player.

2. The First Two Verses

The licks in the first two verses are well placed and compliment’s the vocal. I really like the licks Gibbons plays here. You’ll notice how he accents the vocal and only adds a couple of fill licks. At the end of the verses, our main riff on the 2nd fret of your guitar’s G string comes back. This time you’re going to play the lick much slower.

Verse 1

Verse 2

3. The Guitar Solo

Learning how to play Catfish Blues’ guitar solo, as I mentioned above, is not easy. It will take quite a bit of speed, so I encourage you again to pull out a metronome. Whether you’ve got a mechanical metronome or an app on your phone, the metronome improves your timing. With increased accuracy, you can gradually speed up the song and get progressively better.

I used 55 beats per minute. BUT! When I recorded the song, I increased this to 165 beats per minute. At 165 beats per minute, the metronome will tick 3 times for every beat of the song. The song is in 4/4 time, but it has a waltzy feel to it. In the next sentence, I wrote the beats in bold and underlined them so you can see the 4/4 time and the triplet behind the main beat. With the metronome at 165 bpm, you will hear 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3, 4-2-3, and so on. This will help when learning the solo.

Note, the solo starts halfway through the last line of Verse 2, so start the solo with the lick at the 7th fret of the high-e and G strings!

4. The Last Verse

When the last verse starts, the bass and guitar drop out. In the lesson video, I kept playing the bass because I don’t have a drum machine. This helps keep the time so you know where to come back in.

Billy Gibbons doesn’t come back in until the second line of this verse, and he accents the vocal again. I think you’re going to really like the lick in measure 110. I can’t figure out where I’ve heard this before but it is so freaking cool. If you can’t tell, it’s my favorite lick of the whole song. Tell me what your favorite lick was in the comments!

5. Final Guitar Solo & Outro

The final guitar solo takes a lot of the same pieces from the main guitar solo and re-vamps them. It’s not a long solo, but it does go quick at one point so be ready to pull the metronome out again. I really like the sound of the bend at the 14th fret of the g string combined with the 15th fret of the b string at the 134th measure. Very bluesy!

Lyrics!

I’ve got two, two trains runnin

Somebody help me, oh, find my way

One run at midnight

The other about the break a day

Just about the Break of day

Well, sure ‘nough I done

Well, well, oooo

Oh how I wish, I was a catfish

Swimmin in the deep blue sea

I’d have all you pretty women

Swimmin after me

Swimming after me

Well, sure ‘nough I done.

Well, well, oooo

Two trains runnin

Somebody help me, oh, find my way

One run at midnight

The other about the break of day

Just about the break of day

Well, sure ‘nough I done,

Well, well, oooo

That’s It!

You just learned how to play ZZ Top’s cover of Catfish Blues! If you’re looking for lessons geared more towards beginners, check out our lesson on Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival! Or take a stab at learning Blue Oyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper! They’re both super easy songs and have great guitar licks!

Also, go check out some of our country lessons! If you’re a beginner looking for more simple chords, try Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show or Willin’ by Little Feat! These simple songs are great to learn! If you’re an intermediate to advanced player, how about trying Can’t You See by The Marshall Tucker Band or Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line by Waylon Jennings!

And if you liked the guitar we used in today’s video, check out our full review of the Gibson SG 61 Reissue!

Thank you for learning how to play Catfish Blues with me today. Like what you’re reading? Enter your email address below, and click Sign Up to subscribe to our email list. You’ll get the latest updates from The Smelly Tele the moment they’re published. We will never send you spam.

And if you struggled with any part of this lesson, reach out and let me know! I’d be happy to help you work through one part of the song or another!