Every Day I Have the Blues

When a young B.B. King entered a Los Angeles studio in 1955, he lifted the exact big-band blueprint of Memphis Slim's hit version of this obscure 1930s tune. But King completely supercharged it. Arranger Maxwell Davis organized a massive, swinging, incredibly tight horn section. King belted the vocals with the power of a gospel shouter and cut through the massive brass sound with stinging, weeping single-note solos on his guitar, "Lucille." It became King's career-defining orchestra theme, permanently pulling the blues out of the rural juke joint and dropping it into the sophisticated city nightclub.