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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.

“Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)” (also known as “Call It Stormy Monday” or just “Stormy Monday”) is a blues song written by T-Bone Walker and first recorded in 1947. The song is based in the standard 12-bar blues format and is about a person who is separated from their love, suffering from guilt in some way because of what they have done.

This song has become a standard for blues and blues rock artists and has been recorded by Albert King, Eva Cassidy, Question Mark and the Mysterians, Jethro Tull, Eric Clapton, Shake Your Hips!, Lee Michaels, and many others. Trouble ensued when artists named it “Stormy Monday Blues”, however, as for instance Bobby Bland did on a well-known rendition, as it was mis-credited and royalties went to the Hines-Eckstine song rather than Walker’s. This may have also happened on some of the treatments that were just called “Stormy Monday”.

Read on for the full guitar lesson including video, tab, and jam tracks…

Guitar Lesson

In this blues guitar lesson, we are in the key of G. Stormy Monday has a nice set of chord changes that require following the changes when soloing. Each chord has a variety of substitutes, the basic chords are G7-C9-Am7-Bm7-Bb7-D9-d#9. Some versions would also include a G#7 and possibly a 9th chord chromatic walk from the D9 up to an F9. Some might “swing” a little more than others while some verisons might be a full blown out “swing”.

My soloing is based around the Gmin pentatoinc scale but I’m blending Gmaj pentatoinc notes as well as other passing tones and during the Am7-Bm7-Bb7-D9-D39 I will often target chord tones of the chord currently being played. Think BB King and Albert King when bending and don’t forget lots of BB King style vibrato!

As for tone I would look for amp settings that maintain the clarity and cleanliness of each note but with enough gain to add grit and sustain. Try using your right hand fingers for soloing to get that traditional blues tone made famous by Freddie King, Albert Collins and Albert King.

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

Tab

Chart 1
Chart 2

Jam Track

http://blog.truefire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/stormyMP3.mp3

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.