The Blues are a Breeze

The Blues are a breeze. They are relatively easy to play (only three chords).

So, for example if you play in the key of E, you will need A and B7. Paul McCartney tells (on the opposite page) the story of travelling across Liverpool as teenagers looking for someone to teach them to play the B7 chord. True? Who knows, it’s a great story.

You can learn a lot about their history and development from Nir Kligsberg’s fine book.

The blues usually have twelve bars, with four beats to each bar (they can also have 16 bars, 8 bars, etc.). Here is a free, basic instructional video teaching how to play the 12 bar blues on the guitar in the key of E.

Since music is relative, you can play the blues in any key as long as you keep the relativity of the chords. For example, blues in the key of C would involve the following chords:  C, F and G7.

The 12 bar Blues lyrics are also super easy to write. Very often it expresses a loss, anguish, sadness. Proper use of grammar is only optional in blues. Here is an example of a first line.

I woke up this morning, and my lovin’ girl is gone.

The second line just repeats itself.

I woke up this morning, and my lovin’ girl is gone.

The third line should rhyme with the first (and second line). This is a bit of a challenge, but not much of one. For example.

If you don’t love me babe, why’dya go and lead me on?

Note: I just made these lyrics up, but I am sure if I google this, hundreds if not thousands of others have written similar lyrics. Oh well, that’s the blues for you. They’re just so easy to write.

Since rock and roll (and its predecessors) grew out of the blues, it’s not surprising that many rock and roll songs are blues. Just a few examples:

Rock around the clock, Hounddog, Tootie Fruitie…

And many songs of the sixties, including over twenty performed by the Beatles (most of Can’t Buy Me Love), many performed by Ray Charles (Busted, Unchain my heart, What’d I Say)…

The basic formula of a 12 bar blues progression, as written in Roman numerals with each character representing one measure, is as follows:
I       I      I      I
IV    IV     I     I
V     IV     I     I

Here are the not so famous toothpaste blues, of course…

And even less famous, The Dead Sea Blues, but a lot of fun to sing and play

You can leave a comment here, just double click. What is your favorite blues song from the sixties?

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