What a wonderful example of the 12-bar blues Merline Johnson's Some Day I'll Be Gone Away is!
You can listen to it on YouTube BY CLICKING HERE.
Merline recorded the song in 1938 and almost certainly wrote it herself.
It's based on the standard 12-bar blues chord sequence and is performed in the key of C. There's a four-bar Introduction and then Merline sings - without a break - five separate choruses. So we have 64 glorious bars of blues music in total.
As with most great blues, we find the twelve bars are broken down into three distinct groups of four. Merline always makes the most of the first four bars, singing two 'rhyming' lines that surge up on the C7 chord of the fourth bar, leading into an explosive 'Some DAY' on the F chord in bars 5 and 6. Yes: the word 'DAY' is punched out very effectively in every chorus. The 'rhymes' are good examples of the assonances that are commonplace in the blues: cold/more; pond/wrong; self/else; gin/been.
So, for anybody who knows nothing about the 12-bar blues, this tune is a model of what such songs sound like at their best, with all the familiar ingredients.
Although very little is known about Merline Johnson, she left us several important and influential recordings. Examples are Sold it to the Devil, Bad Whiskey Blues, Running Down My Man, Got a Man in the 'Bama Mine, Jelly Bean Blues, I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water, and Please Come Back to Me.
Merline's influence has been particularly strong on Erika Lewis and the band Tuba Skinny. You can hear Erika singing Some Day I'll Be Gone Away BY CLICKING HERE.
In this Tuba Skinny version, the band plays two full choruses as an Introduction. Erika then sings the second of Merline's choruses followed by the first. Then Shaye takes a chorus on cornet before Ewan leads one and then Barnabus leads another. Jonathan takes the next. After all this, Erika resumes, this time singing the fourth and fifth of Merline's choruses. The performance ends with a band ensemble chorus.
So, in developing the Merline Johnson original, Tuba Skinny (incidentally retaining her key of C), make it much more of a band number, even though Erika gets to sing four of the five choruses.
So, in developing the Merline Johnson original, Tuba Skinny (incidentally retaining her key of C), make it much more of a band number, even though Erika gets to sing four of the five choruses.
