Dust My Broom is one of those songs that sits at the roots of electric blues. Elmore James wrote it, and that slide riff has been copied, borrowed, and built upon by just about every blues guitarist since. This version comes from the ZZ Top arrangement off the Degüello album — same bones as the Elmore James original, but with a bit more Texas grit. Fair warning: this one uses open D tuning and slide, so it’s a different animal from your standard-tuning blues songs.

Getting Into Open D Tuning

Before you play a single note, you need to retune your guitar to open D. When you strum all six strings open, you should hear a D major chord. Here’s how the strings map out from low to high: D-A-D-F#-A-D.

Starting from standard tuning, here’s what changes. The low E drops a whole step to D. The A stays where it is. The D stays. The G drops a half step to F# — that’s your major third. The B drops a whole step to A, giving you the fifth. And the high E drops a whole step to D. Three strings change, three stay.

Tune carefully. Open tunings are less forgiving than standard when you’re even slightly out. Once you’re there, strum the open strings and you should hear a clean D major chord ringing out.

The Boogie Shuffle Pattern

The core of Dust My Broom is a two-string boogie shuffle. In open D, the sixth and fifth strings give you your root and fifth (D and A), which means you can play the shuffle pattern with just those two open strings plus one finger adding the major sixth.

Here’s what makes open D so convenient for this: in standard tuning, you’d need to add the sixth with an extra finger. But because the tuning already gives you the root and fifth, the shuffle practically plays itself. Open strings, add the sixth with your pinky, and you’ve got the pattern. That’s your D chord section.

For the G chord (your IV), bar across the sixth and fifth strings at the fifth fret and do the same shuffle pattern. For the A chord (your V), move that bar up to the seventh fret. The shape stays identical — you’re just moving it up the neck.

The 12-Bar Structure (With a Twist)

Dust My Broom follows a 12-bar blues form, but with a small twist in the turnaround. The basic progression is D for four bars, G for two, back to D for two, then A, G, and back to D. Not quite the standard I-IV-V-IV-I ending you might expect — there’s a slightly different sequence in those last few bars that gives the song its character.

Most of the song sits on that D shuffle. When the vocal comes in with “I believe I’ll dust my broom,” you’re riding the D pattern the whole time. The changes to G and A come quickly and then drop right back. Keep your ear tuned to the vocal melody and the chord changes will start to feel natural.

Adding the Slide

This is where Dust My Broom really becomes Dust My Broom. The slide work happens on top of the shuffle pattern. The shuffle parts use standard fretting, then you switch to the slide for the melodic fills between vocal lines.

If you’re new to slide, open D is a great tuning to start in. Because the open strings form a chord, you can lay the slide flat across all six strings at any fret and get a clean major chord. The twelfth fret gives you D an octave up. The fifth fret gives you G. The seventh gives you A. That lines up perfectly with your I-IV-V progression.

The classic Dust My Broom slide lick starts at the twelfth fret, slides down, and resolves. Don’t overthink it at first — get the shuffle pattern locked in, then start layering the slide work on top.

A Song Worth the Setup

Open tuning songs take a little more commitment than standard tuning ones. You have to retune, which means you’re dedicated to that tuning for at least a few songs. But Dust My Broom is one of those tunes that makes it worth the trouble. It’s a staple of the blues guitar tradition, and once you’ve got the open D shuffle and slide combination working, a whole catalog of blues songs opens up to you in that same tuning. If you want to dig deeper into slide guitar technique, we’ve got more lessons that build on exactly what you’re learning here.

Start with the shuffle pattern. Get it smooth and steady. Then add the chord changes. Then bring in the slide. Layer by layer, and before long you’ve got a song that sounds like it came straight out of a Delta juke joint. For something completely different in the blues world — standard tuning, minor key, and perfect for soloing — try The Thrill is Gone.