Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)

T-Bone Walker, 1947, from Non-album single. Solo by T-Bone Walker.

Walker's jazzy chord-based fills and single-note answers laid down the vocabulary nearly every electric blues player after him borrowed.

Call It Stormy Monday shows T-Bone Walker laying down the vocabulary nearly every electric blues guitarist after him would borrow. His playing combines jazzy chord-based fills with sharp single-note answers to his vocal lines. The tone is clean and warm, with a smooth, rounded attack. Walker's sophisticated harmony, drawn from jazz, gives the song a relaxed, urbane feel. Players from B.B. King onward have credited him as a foundational influence. Listen for the jazzy chords he uses in the fills, which give the song its distinctive harmonic color, and for the single-note phrases that answer his voice like a second singer.

Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad) by T-Bone Walker is featured in our Blues (#3) list. The solo is played by T-Bone Walker and the song was released in 1947.

In our lists

• The Greatest Solo of Every Year — #7
• Beyond the Canon — #13
• The 25 Greatest Blues Guitar Solos — #3
• The Best T-Bone Walker Guitar Solos — #1

Sources

• Guitar Player: 50 Badass Blues Guitar Solos You Must Hear