Irnhashechempluex June 17, 2012, 12:46:48

Now you’re hittin’ close to the bone. Back when I first staetrd playing, say around 1961-2, I hooked up with Dave Bussard and we did a guitar/bass thing. One of the first tunes we figured out was Stormy Monday , but we could only play it in the key of E. Of course I end up doing it to this day at the Blues Jam that I play, but it isn’t as much of a standard as it could be. Basically, the player who runs the jam calls the shots, since he (hasn’t been a she yet) has to sing the tunes, and everyone has their preferences. Actually, there are two vesions of the tune: Stormy Monday is a straightforward (to get technical for a while) 1-4-5 blues progression, while They Call It Stormy Monday is more complicated, with passing chords and such. It’s not difficult to play, but the progressions must be done correctly for everything to work, and that isn’t always possible when the band might not even know each other’s names, let alone having played together before. The old hands, however, call the latter version the T-Bone Version. Blues is, to me, really the true American music, because jazz has that insufferable, I know more about music theory than you do attitude that gets in the way of communicating emotion, which is what I think music is really for. Great post, Larry, and it gives me a chance to rant about something other than politics!