How Blue Can You Get How Blue Can You Get "How Blue Can You Get" (alternatively "Downhearted") is a blues song first recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers in 1949. It is a slow twelve-bar blues that jazz critic Leonard Feather and his wife, Jane Feather, are credited with writing. The song has been recorded by several blues and other artists. In 1964, it was a hit for B.B. King and became a staple of his live shows. In 1949, Johnny Moore with his brother, Oscar Moore, on guitars, Billy Valentine on piano and vocal, and Johnny Miller on bass recorded "How Blue Can You
How Many Miles to Babylon? good and your spurs be bright. How mony men have ye? Mae nor ye daur come and see.</poem> Various places have replaced Babylon in the rhyme, including London town, Barberry and Berry Bright. The rhyme was not recorded until the nineteenth century, but the reference to Cantelon in the Scottish version has led some to conclude that it refers to Caledon in the time of the Crusades. Babylon may be a corruption of 'Babyland', but the city was a common allusion particularly in seventeenth-century England and 'Can I get there by candlelight?' was a common saying in the sixteenth century.