For tickets to Jazz at Lincoln Center this weekend or a dvd of Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson performing live, try writing a blues. How hard can it be?
“Minutes seem like hours, hours seem like days,
Seems my baby would stop her lowdown ways” — Muddy Waters, “Country Blues”
 “Woke up this morning, looked ’round for my shoes
You know I had those mean old walkin’ blues” — Robert Johnson, “Walkin’ Blues”Â
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“Whoa, oh tell me baby
Where did ya stay last night? An’ why don’t ya hear me cryin’?
Whoo hoo, whoo whoo,Â
Whoo who. . . ” — Howlin’ Wolf, “Smokestack Lightning”
“Bad luck and trouble been my only friend
Been on my own since I was ten
Born under a bad sign, I’ve been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all” — Albert King, “Born Under A Bad Sign”
“When you get good lovin’, don’t you spread the news.
When you get good lovin’, don’t you spread the news.
‘Cause those gals will double cross you,
And leave you with the empty bed blues.” — Bessie Smith, “Empty Bed Blues”