24-bar blues
The 24-bar blues progression is very similar to the 12-bar form, except that
the time each chord progression is played is doubled, like so:
IIIIIIII
IV IV IV IVIIII
V V IV IVI I I V/I (turnaround)32-bar blues and country .................................................................
The 32-bar blues is the direct link between blues and rock and jazz music. This
kind of blues has the AABA structure that was later adopted by rock bands in
the 1960s (see the next section).
Although this form didn’t work as well for blues as the shorter forms did,
simply because it didn’t work as well for the call-and-response form of lyri-
cism that the blues was built on, it worked very well for early country music.
Hank Williams used this form in songs like “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and Freddy
Fender used it in “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” Later, this form was
picked up and popularized by mainstream musicians and could be heard in
songs like “Frosty the Snowman.”
Rock .....................................................................................................
In the 1960s, the Beach Boys used the 32-bar blues form for songs like “Good
Vibrations” and “Surfer Girl” (AABA). Led Zeppelin used it for “Whole Lotta
Love.” The Righteous Brothers used it for “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling,”
except that instead of using 32 bars, the turnaround happens at the 24th bar.
Compound AABA
Other bands took the 32-bar blues form and turned it into the compound 32-
bar blues form, or compound AABA form — which sounds like a wart remover,
but it’s not. In compound AABA form, after you play the first 32 bars, you go
to a second bridge and then repeat the first 32 bars again. The Police’s “Every
Breath You Take” and Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” for a couple examples,
follow this pattern.
Chapter 13: Musical Forms 153