Lesson 20 – Pink Anderson’s Every Day in the Week Blues

Every Day in the Week Blues is a classic Pink Anderson song which can be found on Pink Anderson: Vol. 1 Carolina Bluesman and the album this version comes from, the great Gospel Blues & Street Songs album which features the songs of both Pink Anderson and Reverend Gary Davis. This is an energetic song played in the Piedmont style with a loose ragtime sort feel. As you’ll hear in the original Anderson and accompanist obviously had a great time recording this track, and by the end of the song it sounds like they were having so much fun it careens wildly off the rails.

Take a listen to the original and we’ll get started with our modified interpretation:

Every day in the week is played in the Key of G and uses what is commonly referred to as the ‘Key to the Highway’ progression after the song popularized Big Bill Broonzy. This means its an 8 bar blues with the five chord switched with the four, making the structure I – V – IV as opposed to the more common blues progression I- IV- V. Examples of this can be heard in many songs, the aforementioned ‘Key to the Highway’ as well as ‘East St Louis Blues’ performed here beautifully by William Brown (not to be confused with Willie Brown), and ‘Searching the desert for the blues’ by Blind Willie McTell.

A note on the tabs:

Listen to the examples to get the proper timing. A downloadable pdf version of the following tabs is available at the end of this article.

Structure

Take a minute to get comfortable with the progression and feel before we begin. The verses are G D7 and C7 (I-V-IV), and the chorus/Turnaround is G7 E7 A7 D7 G. It follows this structure throughout the entire song. I’m going to strum through it a few times here using some different chord voicings, feel free to alternate back and forth when you start playing, it will give your performance more colour and dynamics.

Intro

The intro plays a slightly modified version of the verses, shortening the d7 by a beat and jumping straight into this funky lick. The single note run that starts in bar 5 is played by alternating the thumb and picking finger, for example:

0 3 2 1
T i T i

Verses

The verses don’t vary much throughout the song. Take note of the pattern used the bars 2-4, it’s used consistently in all the picking parts which follow. The turnaround/chorus part that comes in on the G chord in Bar 5 has a several variations which Pink throws in intermittently, the first pattern here is what is used most often. Notice the combination of finger picking and strumming, the right hand stays very busy.

Verse:

Turnaround:

Solo

The solo is deceptively simple: easy but hard to pull off properly. It starts with holding down a full G chord. To get the rhythm you need to hit the 6 string with your thumb, and on the off beat upstroke the top of the chord using your ring or middle finger. The bass string riff is played with the thumb and doubled notes are hit using the thumb and index finger (or just the thumb if you can get the speed). Concentrate on getting the idea of this rhythmic style under your belt before getting to the solo:

Example:

Solo:

Outro

This is a cool little riff that Pink plays at some point during the outro.

That’s the bulk of the main bits and pieces. Here they are stuck together in the unofficial Fingerstyle Blues interpretation :

Download the full transcription [pdf 984kb]

The original song has an odd structure, listen to get the exact number of versus and where to put the solos. The second solo is identical to the first but played a little more spirited and less precisely. As the song gets towards the last two versus it becomes a little chaotic, and that’s where this lesson ends. It’s well worth listening to and learning, because Pink throws in some great stuff here, if you can follow it.

This is a really fun song to play; I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I do. Once you get the hang of this arrangement be sure to go back and listen to the original for all the nuances and subtleties that were lost in our clumsy approach. When you do play along with Pink you’ll notice his guitar is tuned a semitone sharp. You can either use a capo, re-tune the guitar or use a program like Transcribe to adjust the pitch and speed to whatever you want.

Every Day in the Week Blues Lyrics

I woke up this morning, when the clock was striking four
You oughta heard my baby cry, ‘daddy, please don’t go’
I can’t believe you woman, God knows I have to go
Had the blues so long since I made my poor heart so

Well the blues jumped the devil, run the devil a solid mile
The devil sat down and he cried like a newborn child
If you’ve got you one woman, well you sure better get you five
Cuz two might quit you and the other three might die

I’ve got a Monday woman, works on 4th and Main
I’ve got a Tuesday woman brings me all her change
My Wednesday woman brings me whiskey and beer
I’ve got a Thursday woman, raise sand if she catch me here
My Friday woman just won’t treat me right,
I got a Saturday woman I declare works me all night
My Sunday woman leaves me on my own to sleep
You gotta know about that, got a gal every day in the week

I don’t love no yellow woman, and I ain’t crazy about no brown
Cuz you can’t tell the difference I declare when the sun go down
My old grandma, and my grandpa, both of them got old and grey
If grandpa hadn’t a talked careful I wouldn’t have been here today

I’m going to sing this verse and I declare I ain’t gonna sing no more
I’m gonna leave here directly, gonna walk and tell everything I know
Transcribed by Fingerstyle-blues.com

Pink Anderson on Amazon