Improvising "Easy"....NOT!

My latest assignment is to take a lick I like from any song and work the chorus forms. So, I pick Jimmy Reed's "Baby What you Want Me To Do." It's a song I'd like to learn and sing, so why not start by working the licks. It seems like a pretty simple song: 2 vocal choruses, a harmonica bridge, another vocal chorus and a fade out. Pretty simple words. Seems like a key my voice can hit. And there don't seem to be any harmonica techniques that are too weird. I've just barely gotten to the point where I can SORT OF play along with a simple song--when nobody else is around. (After a year of learning by playing songs from reading, I feel like I'm barely at the point, where I could almost, maybe, soon learn like Mark Hummel describes, by playing the song over and over again, 'til you get it. If I could get to the point where someone said, "Shut up, Jackson, you suck!" that sounds to me like I'd be making progress. It seems like the stuff I've done so far was pre-beginner, and now I'm barely beginning.)

So anyway, I get the first lick down, maybe ok (and it's really simple, you realize, but takes me forever--yesterday I inadvertantly dragged my amazing slowdowner pitch button over a semitone and boy did that confuse the heck out of me). I thought I might as well try the rest of the song, but got exhausted when I wasn't satisfied with what I got for the IV (4332, 434+ doesn't sound right, but is as close as I could get).

OK. So work the first lick (which I think is 235....., 5 4 2), but it's so complete, a call and answer, that I'm at a loss for fills.

I share these struggles in case someone else is going through the same thing and afraid to say. I'm stubborn. I'll take a breath and try another angle.

Anne Marie