Master Blaster | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
||: N.C :|| x6
||: Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
| F | F | Cm | Bb :|| x3
Verse 1
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
Everyone’s feeling pretty, it’s hotter than July.
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
Though the world’s full of problems, they couldn’t touch us even if they tried.
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
From the park I hear rhythms, Marley’s hot on the box.
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
Tonight there will be a party, on the corner at the end of the block.
Chorus 1
||: Cm | G | F | F :||
Didn’t know you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
I said nobody ever told you that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
You would be jammin’ and jammin’ and jammin’, jam on.
Instrumental 1
||: Minor pentatonic riff 1 :||
Verse 2
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
They want us to join their fighting, but our answer today,
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
is to let all our worries, like the breeze through our fingers slip away.
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
Peace has come to Zimbabwe, third world’s right on the one,
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
now’s the time for celebration, ’cause we’ve only just begun.
Chorus 2
||: Cm | G | F | F :||
Didn’t know that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
Bet you nobody ever told you that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
I bet you nobody ever told you that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
I know nobody told you that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
We’re jammin’, jammin’, jammin’, jam on.
Instrumental 2
||: Minor pentatonic riff 2 :||
Solo
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
Verse 3
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
You ask me am I happy, well as matter of fact,
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
I can say that I’m ecstatic, ’cause we all just made a pact.
| Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
We’ve agreed to get together, joined as children in Jah.
| F | F | Cm | Bb |
When you’re moving in the positive, your destination is the brightest star.
Chorus 3
||: Cm | G | F | F :||
You didn’t know that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
I bet you nobody ever told you that you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Oh, Oh, Oh… you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Don’t you stop the music, oh no…
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Na, na na… Nobody told you…
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Oh, Oh, Oh, you, would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
I bet you if someone approached you yesterday to tell you that you would be jammin’ you would not believe it because you never thought that you would be jammin’.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, jammin’, ’til the break of dawn.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Oh, Oh, You may as well believe what you are feeling because you feel your body jammin’.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Oh, Oh, you would be jammin’ until the break of dawn, oh, woo-hoo.
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Baby, baby…
(We’re in the middle of the makin’s of the master blaster jammin’).
Master Blaster Guitar Lesson | Course Preview
Master Blaster (Jammin’) is a single from Stevie Wonder’s album Hotter Than July. Released in 1980 it is a tribute to Bob Marley.
The two legends met at a benefit concert for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind in 1975. As well as sharing the bill, they sang I Shot The Sheriff and Superstition together.
Master Blaster spent seven weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard charts and has become a milestone to learn for musicians, mainly down to the two intricate minor pentatonic instrumental sections.
In the step-by-step course, I’ll take you through how to play all of Master Blaster’s chords, all over the neck.
This involves building rhythm parts for the verse and the chorus. Using these examples as a starting point, you will soon be able to play Master Blaster in an improvised way, or as the title suggests – by Jammin’!
Master Blaster’s chords, progressions, and TAB
The chord progressions of Master Blaster (Jammin’) break all sorts of harmonic rules.
The descending verse chords only have the home chord as a minor, the rest are major chords. This makes it very difficult to determine if the home is chord VI or II.
The ambiguity of, are we in Dorian or Aeolian, is a huge part of Master Blaster’s sound.
Usually, we look to the vocal melody for clues but the entire melody, just like the instrumental sections, is just using the C Minor Pentatonic.
Here are Master Blaster’s verse chords. Cm is chord VI, but it’s also chord II.
||: Cm | Cm Bb | Ab | Ab G |
| F | F | Cm | Bb :||
In the video above, you find an excerpt from the course where I discuss how to play this verse. Below are the chords and TAB from example 1.
In the course, we play this in more areas as well as look at extending Master Blaster’s chords.

Master Blaster’s 8 guitar lessons in the course
The final series of lessons in the Motown Soul course is done around Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece Master Blaster (Jammin’). And as the title suggests, this is all about improvisation.
As a bonus, you’ll know that when you can lay the instrumental sections, you know your Minor Pentatonic well enough – we play it everywhere!
In total, there are 8 step-by-step lessons for Master Blaster available. Here are links to each lesson in the course (members only):
- Step 1 – Bars & Beats
- Step 2 – Verse
- Step 3 – Chorus
- Step 4 – Minor pentatonic exercises
- Step 5 – Instrumental sections
- Step 6 – Conspirian
- Step 7 – The complete song with TAB
- Step 8 – Live band backing track
Become a member today and get unlimited access to all my guitar courses, the SEPR practice route, and the eBook Spytunes Method – You can learn guitar!
Master Blaster chords | Related pages
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