The Monday Blues – Born Under a Bad Sign

I heard this song while driving into work this week. When I am not listening to a book on tape or a sermon from a pastor friend, I am surfing through the channels on Sirius XM. Albert King’s tune, Born Under a Bad Sign was playing on BB King’s Bluesville. I had forgotten how much I liked it.

The song is considered a blues standard. Albert recorded it in 1967. In his book, Deep Blues, Robert Palmer said “the song also had strong crossover appeal to the rock audience with its synchronous bass and guitar lines and topical astrology reference.” It was recorded at Stax Records.

The song was written by Stax singer William Bell and Booker T. Jones. Bell said, “We needed a blues song for Albert King … I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work.” Booker’s arrangement was unique in that it was dominated by an R&B-style bass/rhythm guitar line, which Bell claimed that he came up with “while fooling around on the guitar.”

The song was backed by Booker T and the MG’s and the Memphis Horns. Albert would jump in with vocals and guitar fills. Released in May of 1967, it would reach number 49 on the Billboard Top Selling R&B Singles chart.

Describing the song in an interview, Jones said, “At that time, my writing partner was William Bell. He came over to my house the night before the session. William wrote the words and I wrote the music in my den that night. That was one of my greatest moments in the studio as far as being thrilled with a piece of music. The feeling of it, it’s the real blues done by the real people. It was Albert King from East St. Louis, the left-handed guitar player who was just one of a kind and so electric and so intense and so serious about his music. He just lost himself in the music. He’s such a one of a kind character. I was there in the middle of it and it was exhilarating.”

The song is included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.” Rightfully so.