Tuesday Is Just as Bad

On March 11th, 12th, and 13th of 1971, The Allman Brothers Band played at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East and recorded this performance for a live album.  The National Recording Registry added this double album At the Fillmore East to its registry in 2004, because it was proclaimed to be rock’s greatest live release.  It received wide praise for its lengthy improvisational jams featuring the distinctive dual lead guitars of Duane Allman and Dickie Betts.  Many critics consider this album to be the gold standard of blues-based rock and roll.  The song that I selected from this album is ‘Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)’ (commonly referred to as ‘Stormy Monday’).  ‘Stormy Monday’ by T-Bone Walker was also named to the National Registry in 2007 and he wrote this song and was the first to record it.  T-Bone Walker’s version was inducted into both the Blues Hall of Fame and the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In the mid-1930s, Walker was one of the first blues musicians to amplify the guitar, and this inspired and influenced many blues guitarists that followed after him like B.B. King.  The first recording of this blues standard was made by the Black and White label in Los Angeles on September 14, 1947.  Backing up T-Bone Walker on the session are Lloyd C. Glenn on piano, Bumps Myers on tenor sax, Teddy Buckner on trumpet, Arthur Edwards on bass, and Oscar Lee Bradley on drums.  Over the years the song has been reinterpreted with great success by a wide range of blues, rock and jazz recording artists, including Bobby Blue Bland, Lou Rawls, The Allman Brothers and Kenny Burrell.

Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas, on May 28, 1910, and “T-Bone” is a corruption of his middle name.  As a youth, he accompanied and guided blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson around Dallas.  While not even out of his teens, Walker became a working showman.  Later in the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Walker played with many pre-war American music greats, such as Ida Cox, Cab Calloway, Charlie Christian, and Ma Rainey.  His stage act included playing the guitar behind his head and doing the splits, tricks which thrilled crowds and were later emulated with similar effect by rock musicians Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix.

‘Stormy Monday’ is a 12-bar blues song about a person who could be living in any place or time, but they have the universal experiences of not liking weekdays, which always starts out with a Monday, and after a weekend of partying it can be difficult going back to work.  There is trouble on Monday, but Tuesday doesn’t get any better.  Wednesday’s worse because it’s right in the middle of the work week and there is still a long way to go.  By the time Thursday rolls around, you are dragging your butt, and something always happens to screw up your day.  The weekend puts this guy in a better mood, because “The eagle flies on Friday” meaning that is the day he gets his paycheck, which allows him to go out to play Saturday.  He goes to church and prays on Sundays because his woman has left him, and he wants her to come back.   Not every day at work is going to be sunshine and butterflies, as you may have to go through a stormy Monday and caterpillars don’t just wake up as butterflies without being cocoons first.  Sometimes you’ll have bad days (even bad weeks), and yes, sometimes you’ll live for the weekend, but when the weekdays arrive, you have to get up and out of bed.

They call it stormy Monday
But Tuesday’s just as bad
They call it stormy Monday
But Tuesday’s just as bad
Lord, and Wednesday’s worse
And Thursday’s all so bad
The eagle flies on Friday
Saturday I go out to play
The eagle flies on Friday
Saturday I go out to play
Sunday I go to church, yeah
Gonna kneel down and pray
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Though I’m tryin’ and tryin’ to find my baby
Won’t somebody please send ‘er home

Oh ho
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Yeah, I’m proud, Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy on me
Though I’m tryin’, tryin’ to find my baby
Won’t send ‘er home, yeah, oh baby

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is to find a song that has been preserved in the National Recording Registry.