Hi Joe - I had to do a lot of driving over the weekend, so I listened a bunch to Yo Yo Blues and just figured a little bit of it out quickly. To get the chugga-chugga sound on the IV chord and I chord, I ended up alternating between my thumb and index, aiming more for the middle or bass strings rather than the treble strings (this is basically what uncle bud suggested earlier). In a four beat measure, the pattern would be like:
Beat: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
T I T I T I T I
On beats 1 and 3, a bass note is picked. Beats 2 and 4 are heavily brushed - I think the rhythmic emphasis really falls here. The attached file might help to some degree - I ran through the basic verse twice slowly with no singing.
In going back to the posts the Perfesser refers to, I notice that the formatting looks like it's been bumped out of alignment in the above post where frankie outlined the thumb and index strokes. I believe the above is meant to show thumbstrokes on the downbeats and index strokes on the upbeats, resulting in this pattern: thumb bass --> index --> thumb brush --> index. Really fast.
Lefty, re. the chord sequence he uses to start some songs. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues, Goin' Up the Country, Chocolate to the Bone are just some of them.
Re. the bass riff. I'm then guessing it's the bass riff at the end of the form in Yo-Yo Blues. I'm doing this as sixteenth notes rather than eighth notes, so it ends
4 &-a-1 in my lame tab below.
3 & 4 a & a 1
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
------------------0------------------------------------
------------------0-------------------------------------
----------------------0---------------------------------
----2---0----2------------------------------------------
Those first two bass notes are snapped.
