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Bar Room Blues is an exclusive series of video guitar lessons by Steve “Red” Lasner covering classic blues songs from historically great guitarists like B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, and many others. A new lesson will be released each week, so be sure to subscribe and check back often! Also, if you want more guitar lessons like these, be sure to check out Red’s Guitar Sherpa class.

“Every Day I Have the Blues” or “Everyday I Have the Blues” is a blues standard that has been recorded by numerous blues and other artists. In 1949 the song was released by Memphis Slim and was first titled “Nobody Loves Me” (an earlier “Everyday I Have the Blues” with different lyrics and vocal line was recorded by the Sparks Brothers in 1935). Later versions were titled “Every Day I Have the Blues” and received two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards and produced four Billboard R&B chart Top-Ten hit singles.

Lowell Fulson with Lloyd Glenn recorded their version of “Everyday I Have the Blues” in 1949. The song became a hit and spent twenty-three weeks in the Billboard R&B chart, where it reached #3 in 1950. In 1952 and 1955 Joe Williams had hits with two different recordings of the song. The first version, with the King Kolax Orchestra, reached #8 in the R&B chart and a second version with Count Basie, titled “Every Day”, spent twenty weeks in the R&B chart and reached #2. Also in 1955, B.B. King recorded “Every Day I Have the Blues”, which reached #8 in the R&B chart. The song remained in King’s repertoire and he recorded several live versions of the song during his career.

Since the hits of the 1950s, many blues and other artists continue to record “Every Day I Have the Blues”. The song has received two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards: Count Basie with Joe Williams’ 1955 version “Everyday (I Have the Blues)” in 1992 and B.B. King’s 1955 version “Every Day I Have the Blues” in 2004.

In my version we are in the key of D, for my rhythm I’ll use 9th, 7th and major chords, for the lead I’ll use major and minor pentatonics with added chord and passing tones focusing on major tones, I’ll also focus on the “BB box”.

The background track is a live track with Calvin Cratic on drums and Hiram Hazely on bass. The background track and chord chart are available too.

Guitar Lesson

Check out the tab and jam track below, and give this bar room blues song a try yourself!

Chart

Chart

Jam Track

Jam

Bar Room Blues is an exclusive series of video guitar lessons by Steve “Red” Lasner covering classic blues songs from historically great guitarists like B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, and many others. A new lesson will be released each week, so be sure to subscribe and check back often! Also, if you want more guitar lessons like these, be sure to check out Red’s Guitar Sherpa class.