"Worried Life Blues" is a

blues standard Blues standards are blues songs that have attained a high level of recognition due to having been widely performed and recorded. They represent the best known and most interpreted blues songs that are seen as standing the test of time. Blues ...

and one of the most recorded

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

songs of all time. Originally recorded by

Big Maceo Merriweather Major Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953), better known as Big Maceo Merriweather, was an American pianist and blues singer. He was mainly active in Chicago through the 1940s. Career Born in Newnan, Georgia, he was a self-t ...

in 1941, "Worried Life Blues" was an early blues hit and Maceo's most recognized song. An earlier song inspired it and several artists have had record chart successes with their interpretations of the song.

Background

"Worried Life Blues" is based on "Someday Baby Blues" recorded by

Sleepy John Estes John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an Am ...

in 1935. Estes' song is performed as a vocal and guitar

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

, whereas Maceo's is a prototypical

Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...

. To illustrate the lyrical differences of the originals, the first few verses are as follows: :"Worried Life Blues" Big Maceo (1941): :"Someday Baby Blues" Sleepy John Estes (1935): Over the years the differences have become blurred by various cover versions of the songs, which use elements from both songs, often combined with new lyrics and variations in the music.

Composition and recording

Big Maceo recorded "Worried Life Blues" June 24, 1941, shortly after arriving in Chicago.

Lester Melrose Lester Franklin Melrose (December 14, 1891 – April 12, 1968) was a talent scout who was one of the first American producers of Chicago blues records. Career Lester Franklin Melrose was born in Sumner, Illinois, the second of six children ...

produced the song and it became Maceo's first single on

Bluebird Records Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...

. The song is a moderate-tempo

eight-bar blues In music, an eight-bar blues is a common blues chord progression. Music writers have described it as "the second most common blues form" being "common to folk, rock, and jazz forms of the blues". It is often notated in or time with eight bars ...

, with Maceo on vocal and piano, accompanied by frequent collaborator, guitarist and fellow recording artist,

Tampa Red Hudson Whittaker (born Hudson Woodbridge; January 8, 1903March 19, 1981), known as Tampa Red, was a Chicago blues musician. His distinctive single-string slide guitar style, songwriting and bottleneck technique influenced other Chicago blues gui ...

and

Ransom Knowling Ransom Knowling (24 June 1912 – 22 October 1967) was an American rhythm and blues musician, best known for playing bass on many blues recordings made in Chicago between the 1930s and 1950s, including those of Arthur Crudup and Little Brothe ...

on bass. Music writer Keith Shadwick identifies it a major hit and blues historian

Jim O'Neal Jim O'Neal (born November 25, 1948, Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States) is an American blues expert, writer, record producer, and record company executive. He co-founded America's first blues magazine, ''Living Blues'', in Chicago in 1970, and w ...

notes that it "eclipsed the song Someday Baby'that inspired it". Several other renditions soon followed, including those by Bill Gaither (1941), Sonny Boy Williams (1942), and

Honeyboy Edwards Honey Boy may refer to: People * Honeyboy Edwards (1915–2011), American Delta blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi *George "Honey Boy" Evans George Evans (10 March 1870 – 5 March 1915) known as "Honey Boy" Evans was a Welsh-born songw ...

(1942). In 1945, Maceo recorded a second version with additional lyrics, also accompanied by Tampa Red. Titled "Things Have Changed", it reached number four in the ''Billboard's'' Race Records chart.

Recognition and influence

"Worried Life Blues" became an early blues standard and was among the first songs inducted into the

Blues Foundation The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 blues organizations from various parts of the world. Founded in 1980, a 25-person board of directors governs the ...

Hall of Fame in 1983 as a "Classic of Blues Recordings". In 2006, the song received a

Grammy Hall of Fame Award The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of ...

. Over the years numerous artists have covered "Worried Life Blues" or some mixture of it, "Someday Baby Blues", and other elements, making it one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. When Charles Brown reworked it as a

West Coast blues West Coast blues is a type of blues music influenced by jazz and jump blues, with strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players who relocated to California in the 1940s. West Coast blues also ...

number titled "Trouble Blues", it was one of the biggest hits of 1949 and spent 15 weeks at number one on ''Billboard's'' Race Records/Rhythm & Blues Records chart. In 1955,

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

recording of it as "

Trouble No More ''Trouble No More'' is American singer-songwriter and musician John Mellencamp's 18th studio album and his final recording for Columbia Records, released in 2003. It consists of blues and folk covers. A re-working of "To Washington" featuring ...

" in a Chicago blues style reached number seven on the R&B chart.

Junior Parker Herman "Junior" Parker (March 27, 1932November 18, 1971) Li ...

recorded the song in 1969 and it appeared at number 34.

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...

had a number 48 charting single in 1970 with "Worried Life" (originally recorded as "Someday Baby" in 1960). In 2007, the band

Clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

covered parts of the song in their own original composition, "Electric Worry", which was published on their album ''From Beale Street to Oblivion''.

References

{{Authority control 1941 songs 1970 singles Junior Parker songs B.B. King songs The Animals songs Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Blues songs Bluebird Records singles