Comparing three guitar solos on "Stormy Monday"

Trying a new model for paid vs free content

My next podcast episode is going to compare recordings of the blues standard “Stormy Monday” by its original author, T-Bone Walker, the reharmonized version by Bobby “Blue” Bland, and the further reharmonized version by the Allman Brothers Band. I want to continue to make podcast episodes free, but I also want my paying subscribers to get something special. My idea is to pair each podcast episode with a paid-subscriber-only post that includes more musicological analysis, notation and other extras. Let’s see how you folks respond!

Aaron Thibeault “T-Bone” Walker first recorded his tune "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just As Bad)" in 1947.

The title has caused a lot of confusion over the years, because everyone shortens it differently, and also because there was an unrelated “Stormy Monday Blues” by Earl Hines and Billy Eckstein that had been a hit a few years earlier.

Anyway, Walker’s record was massively influential. Secondhand Songs lists 227 covers, and that doesn’t begin to account for all the live versions and jam sessions. BB King said that the song inspired him to pick up the electric guitar. T-Bone Walker was way ahead of his time in general; he was playing double-string lead riffs before Chuck Berry, doing splits before James Brown, and playing with his teeth before Jimi Hendrix.