Lots of variations away from the 12-bar, I-IV-V structure… looking for examples of your favorites that infer cleverness or genius in the modification without straying too far from the form.
Although many of Muddy Waters’ compositions predate the development of the 12-bar standard, his extra-bars/extra-beats gems seem more natural to me than some of his predecessors (i.e. Charley Patton). “I Can’t Be Satisfied” is a perfect example.
“Mystery Train” is interesting. The original by Junior Parker is more straightforward (starts on the IV, but otherwise evenly spaced), but by the time Elvis remade it two years later, the count is much different. Now an extra measure or two seems standard. Part of the “mystery” I guess.
The Beatles’ “Yer Blues” fits the mold. Also, lots of Captain Beefheart’s discography - bordering on parody, but brilliant.
Much as I like R.L. Burnside and other hill country blues artists (I was lucky enough to see him perform and shake his hand afterwards) , I don’t think most one-chord songs (see “Wang Dang Doodle”) fit into what I’m aiming for.
Cool groove and all, but not remarkably innovative. IMHO, North Mississippi All-Stars have taken the reins for this genre - I like their stuff a lot too - but it doesn’t strike me as genius-level.
How about “Red Hot” by Billy Lee Riley, which seems to shift into 7/4 in the chorus (“My gal is red hot/Your gal ain’t doodly squat”)? Does that qualify as blues?
That trick of dropping a beat or shifting a chord change backwards or forwards half a measure from where you would normally expect it seems to be a hallmark of certain rockabilly tunes (plus some pre-rockabilly country, all the way back to stuff like “Lovesick Blues” which was apparently written in 1922)… can’t think of any other examples right now that are specifically in the blues form at the moment.
Good one…you just reminded me of another (also not technically not blues, but simple enough); “I’m Shakin’” by Little Willie John, covered by The Blasters, Jack White, etc.
Clapton’s “County Jail Blues” is not a particularly distinguished song by any measure—that whole album it was on, No Reason to Cry, is unremarkable, even though it has Dylan on it for God’s sake—but “County Jail Blues” always sounded odd to me because it makes a feint at 12-bar blues structure… and then sort of forgets about it.
“Mule Skinner Blues”, as performed by the Fendermen, seems to be something like a 20-bar blues with a I-IV-I-V-IV-I structure… but that’s just the plan; the execution comes out a little different.
And yeah, “I’m Shakin’” is a great song – I definitely would have mentioned it if I’d thought of it.
The Stones reworked Robert Johnson’s “Love In Vain” in lovely ways. Making it slow 6/8 isn’t that unusual, nor is the methodical arpeggiation (of simple major chords, not particularly bluesy), but that one measure of relative minor – the first half of “bar 10” (the second half is the normal dominant) – kills me every time. (It’s especially effective in the live version. The studio version is faster, adds a mandolin, and is lighter folk/country).
Come to think of it, Eric Clapton does something similar in his jolly, rollicking, slide-heavy version of “Motherless Children.” He makes it 16 bars. The dominant-chord measure (normally the 9th of 12, not 10th – I was mistaken in the previous post), like the Stones’ Love in Vain, is the relative minor for half of it. (In Clapton’s Motherless, it happens to be in the 12th measure.)
One more: Radiohead’s “Lucky” is bluesy not just in the bluesy 7th chords and melodies, but in the overall harmonic arc of each verse-chorus sequence. It is far from a normal 12-bar blues – too many chords for that – but the first two-thirds of each sequence does have a lot of I7’s with some IV7’s, while the last third is mostly IV7’s and I7s, and ends on a sly V7.
