Released 1958 (1958) Studio Cobra, Chicago | Recorded 1958 Genre Blues | |
B-side "Keep On Loving Me Baby" Format 7-inch 45 rpm & 10-inch 78 rpm record | ||
"Double Trouble" is a blues song written and recorded by Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush . Since its release as a single in 1958, the song has been recorded by several blues and other artists, including several versions by Eric Clapton. Stevie Ray Vaughan named his band "Double Trouble" after Rush's song. In 2008, Rush's original version was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, who called it a "minor-key masterpiece".
Contents
Original song
"Double Trouble" is a slow tempo twelve-bar blues notated in 4
4 time in the key of D minor. "The song's underlying air of quiet desperation stretched to the breaking point is enhanced by brilliant use of dynamics and some truly mind-boggling, strangled guitar fills near the end." According to Otis Rush, the song's title was inspired by a comment by a woman upon viewing her hand during a card game "trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, double troubles".
The song was produced by Willie Dixon and features Rush on guitar and vocal, Dixon on bass, Ike Turner on second guitar, Little Brother Montgomery on piano, Harold Ashby and Jackie Brenston on saxophones, and Billy Gayles on drums. Although Rush plays the lead guitar introduction to the song, Turner plays the signature vibrato guitar parts. In 1986, Rush recorded a live version of the song for Blues Interaction – Live in Japan 1986, which was released in 1989.
Recordings by other artists
Musical artists who have recorded "Double Trouble" include the Paul Butterfield Blues Band from The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (1967) and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Peter Green from Looking Back (1969) and the expanded A Hard Road (2003). Studio and live versions by Eric Clapton appear on No Reason to Cry (1976), Just One Night (1980), Crossroads (1988), Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies (1996), Blues (1999), and Live from Madison Square Garden (2009).