List of blues standards

Color photo of Barack Obama singing into a microphone with B.B. King and other musicians and guests.
"Sweet Home Chicago" performed at the White House with Barack Obama joining B.B. King on the chorus

Blues standards are blues songs that have attained a high level of recognition due to having been widely performed and recorded. They represent the best known and most interpreted blues songs that are seen as standing the test of time. Blues standards come from different eras and styles, such as ragtime-vaudeville, Delta and other early acoustic styles, and urban blues from Chicago and the West Coast.

Many blues songs were developed in American folk music traditions and individual songwriters are sometimes unidentified. Blues historian Gerard Herzhaft noted:

In the case of very old blues songs, there is the constant recourse to oral tradition that conveyed the tune and even the song itself while at the same time evolving for several decades. This was long before the first recording. The fact that such blues are attributed to Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Blake often means that they were the first to record them.

Compounding the problem is that, in the earlier days, many blues songs were not copyrighted. Later, the rights were claimed by those who recorded a subsequent version or were managers or record company owners.

Nearly one half of the blues standards listed were first recorded in the pre-World War II acoustic blues era, before music publications tracked the sales of blues records. Many popular renditions, as reflected in the record charts, are more modern versions featuring electric instruments. For example, Robert Johnson and Tampa Red, who were the first to record the most blues standards on the list at four each, performed them as solo or duo acoustic performances. B.B. King and Muddy Waters, with the most standards on the charts at five each, used electric blues-ensemble arrangements.

Music journalist Richie Unterberger commented on the adaptability of blues: "From its inception, the blues has always responded to developments in popular music as a whole: the use of guitar and piano in American folk and gospel, the percussive rhythms of jazz, the lyrics of Tin Pan Alley, and the widespread use of amplification and electric instruments all helped shape the evolution of the blues." Blues standards that appeared on the main charts in the 1960s and 1970s often had been recorded by rhythm and blues, soul, and rock musicians. Each song listed has been identified by five or more music writers as a blues standard. Spellings and titles may differ; the most common are used.

List

List of blues standards, with title, first recorded by, year, charting single(s), and references
Title First recorded by Year Charting single(s) by Refs
"Ain't Nobody's Business" Anna Meyers with the Original Memphis Five
1922
"All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" Otis Rush
1958
"Baby, Please Don't Go" Big Joe Williams
1935
"Baby What You Want Me to Do" Jimmy Reed
1960
"Blues with a Feeling" Rabon Tarrant
1947
Little Walter (1953)
"Boom Boom" John Lee Hooker
1962
"Born Under a Bad Sign" Albert King
1967
"Caldonia" Louis Jordan
1945
"Catfish Blues" Robert Petway
1941
Muddy Waters (1951 as "Still a Fool")
"Crosscut Saw" Tommy McClennan
1941
Albert King (1967)
"Crossroads" Robert Johnson
1936
Cream (1969)
"Don't You Lie to Me" Tampa Red
1940
"Driftin' Blues" Johnny Moore's Three Blazers 1945
"Dust My Broom" Robert Johnson
1936
Elmore James (1952)
"Every Day I Have the Blues" Pinetop Sparks
1935
"Farther Up the Road" Bobby Bland
1957
Bobby Bland (1957)
"Five Long Years" Eddie Boyd
1952
"Forty-Four" Roosevelt Sykes
1929
"Goin' Down Slow" St. Louis Jimmy Oden
1941
Bobby Bland (1974)
"Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" Sonny Boy Williamson I
1937
Smokey Hogg (1950 as "Little School Girl")
"Got My Mojo Working" Muddy Waters
1956
Jimmy Smith (1966)
"Help Me" Sonny Boy Williamson II
1963
Sonny Boy Williamson II (1963)
"Hide Away" Freddie King
1961
"Hoochie Coochie Man" Muddy Waters
1954
"How Long Blues" Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell
1928
"I Can't Quit You Baby" Otis Rush
1956
Otis Rush (1956)
"I'm a Man" Bo Diddley
1955
"I'm Ready" Muddy Waters
1954
Muddy Waters (1954)
"It Hurts Me Too" Tampa Red
1940
"Kansas City" Little Willie Littlefield
1952
"Key to the Highway" Charlie Segar
1940
Little Walter (1958)
"Killing Floor" Howlin' Wolf
1964
"Little Red Rooster" Howlin' Wolf
1961
"Mean Old World" T-Bone Walker
1942
Little Walter (1953)
"My Babe" Little Walter
1955
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" Bessie Smith
1929
"Reconsider Baby" Lowell Fulson
1954
Lowell Fulson (1954)
"Rock Me Baby" Lil' Son Jackson
1950
B.B. King (1964)
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" Hambone Willie Newbern
1929
"See See Rider" Ma Rainey
1924
"Sitting on Top of the World" Mississippi Sheiks
1930
"The Sky Is Crying" Elmore James
1960
Elmore James (1960)
"Spoonful" Howlin' Wolf
1960
Etta James & Harvey Fuqua (1961)
"Stormy Monday" T-Bone Walker
1948
"Sugar Mama" Tampa Red
1934
"Sweet Home Chicago" Robert Johnson
1936
Junior Parker (1958)
"Sweet Little Angel" Lucille Bogan
1930
B.B. King (1956)
"That's All Right" Jimmy Rogers
1950
"The Things That I Used to Do" Guitar Slim
1953
"The Thrill Is Gone" Roy Hawkins
1951
"Trouble in Mind" Bertha "Chippie" Hill
1926
"Walkin' Blues" Robert Johnson
1936
Muddy Waters (1948 as "I Feel Like Going Home")
"Worried Life Blues" Big Maceo
1941
"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" Tampa Red
1938
Freddie King (1961)
A dash ( — ) denotes a song that did not appear on a record chart.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ For example, "Crosscut Saw" is usually attributed to Tommy McClennan, whose 1941 recording was the first to be released (Tony Hollins, who recorded a version three months earlier that was unissued until 1992, has also been mentioned). In 1964, R. G. Ford, a Memphis, Tennessee, attorney, filed for the copyright in his own name after a group he represented recorded the tune. Ford is listed as the songwriter on records by Albert King (who popularized the song in 1967) and most subsequent releases. Some commentators, who may be unfamiliar with the song's origins, have referred to "Crosscut Saw" as "the R. G. Ford song".
  2. ^ a b The singles charts on which the standards appear are: Billboard's Race/R&B/Soul/Black and Hot 100 singles charts; Australian singles charts; Canadian RPM singles charts; and UK Singles Charts. The individual citations are included in the "Refs" column entries.
  3. ^ A "test disc" of "Walking Blues", recorded by Son House for Paramount Records in 1930, was not discovered until 1989: "[Robert] Johnson must have learned the lyrics from House's live performances... Johnson straightened out House's somewhat idiosyncratic musical accompaniment, and in the process created a song that would, by and by, become a blues standard."

This page was last updated at 2024-01-19 03:44 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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