Every Day I Have the Blues
When Memphis Slim entered a Chicago studio in 1949 to cut "Every Day I Have the Blues," he took a relatively obscure 1930s tune by the Sparks brothers and completely supercharged it. Slim built a swinging, relentlessly driving jump-blues arrangement around his booming piano and a tight, punchy horn section. The record was a massive hit, but its true legacy came a few years later when a young B.B. King lifted Slim's exact big-band blueprint, turning the song into his own career-defining, brass-heavy orchestra theme.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
Contributions welcome at OlMrRead@ccblues.com.