Eight-bar blues

B. Lenoir's "Slow Down"[11] and "Key to the Highway" (variation with the V at bar 2): "Get a Haircut" by George Thorogood (simple progression): Jimmy Rogers' "Walkin' By Myself"[11] (somewhat unorthodox example of the form): Howlin Wolf's version of "Sitting on Top of the World" is actually a 9 bar blues that adds an extra "V" chord at the end of the progression.

The song uses movement between major and dominant 7th and major and minor fourth: The first four bar progression used by Wolf is also used in Nina Simone's 1965 version of "Trouble in Mind", but with a more uptempo beat than "Sitting on Top of the World": The progression may be created by dropping the first four bars from the twelve-bar blues, as in the solo section of Bonnie Raitt's "Love Me Like a Man" and Buddy Guy's "Mary Had a Little Lamb":[13] There are at least a few very successful songs using somewhat unusual chord progressions as well.

For example, the song "Ain't Nobody's Business" as performed by Freddie King at least, uses a I–III–IV–iv progression in each of the first four bars.

The same chord progression can also be called a sixteen-bar blues, if each symbol above is taken to be a half note in 22 or 44 time.

Examples are "Nine Pound Hammer"[6] and Ray Charles's original instrumental "Sweet Sixteen Bars".