Stormy Monday - Bobby Bland
If you ever wondered where the great Peter Green got his unique singing style from - just listen to this and you'll know.
More Bobby Bland, and so far as I'm concerned you can never have too much Bobby Bland.
Bobby was born in Tennessee and moved to its music capital Memphis at the age of 17 when he soon became a member of the now legendary Beale Street bunch of musicians, most famous of whom was BB King. BB King was Peter Green's greatest guitar influence, and I wouldn't mind betting that Bland was his greatest vocal influence.
Just to go round and round, the song was originally composed and released in 1940 as "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)" by pioneering blues electric guitarist T-Bone Walker. It's said that it was through listening to this track that BB King switched from acoustic to electric guitar. BB King later said of Peter Green's guitar playing:
"He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats."
The exquisite slowhand guitar on this is by Wayne Bennett, a much admired regular of Bland's band and his arpeggioing backing and solo on this is so beautifully articulated and paced as to definitely have influenced many later rock axemen.
But when Bobby Bland released his version of the song, his record label boss erroneously gave it the title "Stormy Monday" which was a different song, but in one of those quirky injustices that populate the music publishing industry, the composers of the wrong song have been wrongly getting the royalties ever since. So it goes.
"The eagle flies on Friday,
and Saturday I go out to play...."