 It is based on earlier blues songs, and numerous artists later interpreted it.Wolf had performed "Smokestack Lightning" in one form or another at least by the early 1930s, when he was performing with Charley Patton in small Delta communities.The song, called "a hypnotic one-chord drone piece", draws on earlier blues, such as Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues" (1928, Victor 21279), the Mississippi Sheiks' "Stop and Listen Blues" (1930, OKeh 8807), and Charley Patton's "Moon Going Down" (1930, Paramount 13014).