Playing weeks and weeks of Stormy Monday

I wasn't terrribly surprised to see that Stormy Monday is probably the most-recorded blues song of 'em all, with at least 1,134 versions out there. Without a doubt it's the most played by bar bands.

It's a great song. T-Bone Walker originally played it, and the lyrics take you through a week of the blues:

"They Call it stormy Monday,
But Tuesday's just as bad ..."

It was also the first blues I've played in public, if you don't count Miles Davis' "All Blues," which is a jazz piece from his Kind Of Blue album.

But in my first sessions on stage, this harmonica player discovered something about colliding perceptions and reality:

• All harmonica players do nothing but blues.
• All bar bands know "Stormy Monday."
• Therefore, all harp players end up playing "Stormy Monday." A lot.

It's hysterical. Every bar band in the world plays "Stormy Monday." In fact, with many it's the only blues they know. They play it to "prove" they know blues, but in actuality it just proves the band doesn't know much of anything.

So after years of playing it, and even hearing it in my sleep, I ran out of ideas. Got tired of playing it. There are only so many ways you can attack a slow-blues standard, and I probably used all of them at some point. Double-time in the solos. Long pauses and held notes, going into clusters of sixteenth-notes. I quoted other songs -- my favorite version was throwing a few notes from that other blues chestnut, "After Hours," into it. I had to do something with it. In 1994, I stopped playing it.

In a famous interview, jazz innovator Charlie Parker said he had the same feeling with "Cherokee." He'd played it so many times he could do it while nodding out (and apparently he often did). Got sick of that song. But he did break through that wall, by using the upper intervals of the chords. This gave him a larger pool of notes to work with, and he said he came alive musically at that point.

I didn't go that far; even in my fantasies there's no way I can get close to Parker's musicianship. Instead, I chose to "boycott" the song. Any time it came up on stage, I sat it out. Which was all right; I was working in more of a country/rock direction then. I'd do other blues every so often, but indulged my interest in other musical forms.

It wasn't until 10 years later that I consented to play "Stormy Monday" again. I was playing with a vocalist named Jayne Valentine, who had this really powerful, expressive voice. We also shared an intuituve musical rapport, and every time we got together on stage, sparks would fly. More than a few folks swore we were an "item," that's how high the energy level was. But one night she decided to sing T-Bone's song, and because it was someone with the talent level and emotional level of Jayne, I joined her on it. And again, the song came alive.

Working with folks like that would put muscle, blood, and breath to any song.

T-Bone is still one of the great blues guitarists, and Stormy Monday is still a great song.

I'd play it again.

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Junior Wells blew up a storm on harp

It was around 1990, I was learning my way around the blues, and my friend Kathe had a CD she wanted me to hear.

Bless Kathe's heart. She had a killer voice and good stage presence, and we'd hit the jam sessions together. I'm still amazed at how she was able to belt out a song like that though she was confined to a wheelchair -- you'd really have to adjust your air column to do something like that. Shoot, just blowing a wind instrument, I can't do it sitting down. I have to play standing up.

Anyway, this album was Bonnie Raitt's first, and it had the feeling of a front-porch picking party. But Kathe wanted me to hear the harmonica player. "He kind of sounds like you," she said.

That was the first time I'd really listened to Junior Wells.

Junior's been dead since 1998, but if he was still around he'd be celebrating his 75th birthday this week. He was a gang kid when he was known as Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., but developed a reputation as a harmonica player. Still in his teens, he was with a group called The Aces.

Among Chicago blues harp players, there was one job in the world to have -- playing in Muddy Waters' band. Muddy knew talent, he knew blues, and he knew harp players. During Wells' Aces days, Muddy had Little Walter Jacobs in the harp slot -- the guy that all harmonica players try to emulate. We have 50 years' worth of harp players using Fender Bassman amps and Shure Green Bullet microphones -- modeled after a taxi mic -- for gear, and they're all trying to replicate the honking, distortion-heavy Little Walter sound.

For some reason, though, Little Walter and Wells traded jobs. Walter got The Aces, and Junior, by virtue of his seat in Muddy's band, became the heavyweight champion of harps.

After his time with Waters, Wells struck out on his own, recording songs like "Messin' With The Kid" and "Hoodoo Man Blues." But it was a long association with guitarist Buddy Guy that kept Junior active and in the forefront.

I have some tracks of Junior and Buddy together, a live set at the House Of Blues in Chicago. It was just those two, playing and singing with no real heavy equipment. Their blues were about as lean as you can get, with Guy alternating between chords and single-note runs, and Wells playing in short bursts, phrasing his stuff. Really an unconventional recording, without filler. A little hard to listen to at first because it's so stripped down, but once you get accustomed to the feel of it, an enjoyable recording.

And no, Junior didn't sound like me. He'd never even heard of me. I wouldn't mind sounding like Junior, if I couldn't sound like myself. Or something. But he was right up there with the Little Walters and Sonny Boy Williamsons in the harp world.

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(Video: With Buddy Guy and a band -- "Messin' With The Kid")