
In 2020, the Blues Foundation inducted Hill's rendition of "Trouble in Mind" into the Blues Hall of Fame as a "Classic of Blues Recording". In a review of the 1965 Antibes- Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival in France, Billboard noted her performance of "Trouble in Mind" as "the blues at its most compelling and featured such unorthodox lyrical variations as 'Gonna let the 2:19 train and barbiturates ease my troubled mind'". Several additional recordings by Simone are in release, including a live performance from the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival ( Nina Simone at Newport) and a more intimate small-combo studio version from 1965 ( Pastel Blues). Nina Simone also scored a hit with it in 1961, when her recording reached numbers 11 on the R&B chart and 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Reviews from 1952 welcomed her return to a blues singing-style after pop-oriented songs, such as "Wheel of Fortune". Hers was the first recording of the song to reach the record charts, peaking at number four on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart. In 1952, Dinah Washington recorded "Trouble in Mind", which was released shortly after her rendition of " Wheel of Fortune". According to Big Bill Broonzy, her performances beginning in 1929 with Jimmie Noone helped to popularize the piece long before she recorded it. When Georgia White recorded the song in 1936, she also was accompanied by Jones on piano, and by a guitarist and bassist. The voice sings in high register, except for the downward cadences which end the phrases the taut, muted trumpet is very blue in tone underneath, the piano is simple and rich". In a review of Hill's 1926 rendition by early jazz critic Rudi Blesh, he noted "poetically and musically it is of rare order. Two years later, Bertha "Chippie" Hill recorded it, with Jones and Louis Armstrong on cornet (sometimes identified as trumpet). In 1924, Thelma La Vizzo was the first to record the tune, with Jones accompanying her on piano. Recordings īlues historian Gerard Herzhaft identifies "Trouble in Mind" as a blues standard "that has been recorded over and over again in jazz, blues, and pop". But I won't be blue al- ways, 'cause the sun's gonna shine in my backdoor some- day". One music transcription shows an eight-bar chord progression in the key of G major in common or 4/4 time at a slow tempo: IĪnother has a simplified version with the lyrics: Musically, the song is an eight-bar blues, used with variations in other early classic female blues songs, such as " Ain't Nobody's Business" (written by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins in 1922) and " Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" ( Jimmy Cox, 1923). Blues historian William Barlow calls the song "the anthem of the classic blues genre" and writer Steve Sullivan describes it as "one of the most indelible blues compositions of the 1920s. For the sun will shine in my back door some day". Despite the sense of pain and despair, music writers such as Adam Gussow and Paul Ackerman point to the hope engendered by the refrain "I won't be blue always.
