NRR Project: “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just as Bad)” (Sept. 14, 1947)

 

NRR Project: “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday’s Just as Bad)”

Composed by T-Bone Walker

Performed by T-Bone Walker, Lloyd C. Glenn, Bumps Myers, Teddy Buckner, Arthur Edwards, Oscar Lee Bradley

Recorded Sept. 14, 1947

2:25

T-Bone Walker was a phenomenon. Read Brian Bader’s essay on him at the National Recording Registry.

He was not the first to use the electric guitar. That honor goes to Chicagoan George Barnes, who played one his brother invented in 1931, when he was only 10 years old. Five years later, Walker was playing one in L.A. Oddly, he started off in the jazz scene there as a singer and dancer. By 1940, he was recording on electric guitar with his own small combos.

Composed and performed by himself, “Stormy Monday” is a blues standard. Walker’s cool, precise approach would influence immensely B.B. King and others.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: “The Churkendoose.”