The melody is the same, but each artist gives it its own "flavor". Anyone know what its called?
Examples: Luther Allison- "Big City"
Byther Smith-"35 Long Years"
and of course BB King's classic: "Why I sing the Blues" The other answerer is correct, most blues are 12 bars in form and what you hear is a I-IV-V progression. In the root chord of A, that means starting on an A chord (the 'I' or root), moving up to D (the 'IV' or subdominant), returning down to the A ('I'), going up to E (the 'V' or dominant), down to the D ('IV') and back down to the A ('I')
Of course, there are many variations and some songs use an 8 or 16-bar pattern, but this is the prevailing form of a standard blues song and for that matter, most rock-n-roll songs. the most common melody in blues is called the "12-bar blues".
hundreds of blues songs have it. |
