Early examples of eight-bar
blues standards include: • "
Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" (
Sara Martin, 1922) • "
Trouble in Mind" (
Bertha Hill, 1926) • "
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (
Bessie Smith, 1929) • "
Key to the Highway" (
Big Bill Broonzy, 1941) • "
Worried Life Blues" (
Big Maceo, 1941) One variant using this progression is to couple one eight-bar blues melody with a different eight-bar blues
bridge to create a blues variant of the standard
32-bar song: "I Want a Little Girl" (
T-Bone Walker) and "
Great Balls of Fire" (
Jerry Lee Lewis) Eight-bar blues progressions have more variations than the more rigidly defined twelve bar format. The move to the IV chord usually happens at bar 3 (as opposed to 5 in twelve bar); however, "the I chord moving to the V chord right away, in the second measure, is a characteristic of the eight-bar blues." : "
Worried Life Blues" (probably the most common eight-bar blues progression): : "
Heartbreak Hotel" (variation with the I on the first half): :
J. B. Lenoir's "Slow Down" and "Key to the Highway" (variation with the V at bar 2): : "Get a Haircut" by
George Thorogood (simple progression): :
Jimmy Rogers' "Walkin' By Myself" : There are at least a few very successful songs using somewhat unusual chord progressions as well. For example, the song "
Ain't Nobody's Business" as performed by
Freddie King at least, uses a I–III–IV–iv progression in each of the first four bars. The same four bar progression is used by the band
Radiohead to make up the bulk of the song "
Creep". : The same chord progression can also be called a
sixteen-bar blues, if each symbol above is taken to be a half note in or time. Examples are "
Nine Pound Hammer" and
Ray Charles's original
instrumental "Sweet Sixteen Bars". ==See also==