B B King The Blues

B.B. King - The Blues (1958) {2005 Remastered & Expanded, Crown–Ace Records CDCHM1084}
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© 1958, 2005 Crown Records | Ace Records | CDCHM 1084
Blues / Modern Electric Blues / Soul-Blues / Memphis Blues

Originally released in 1958 by the budget-priced Crown label, The Blues collected a dozen sides B.B. King cut for RPM and Kent between 1951 and 1958. (RPM and Kent were owned by the Bahari Brothers who also ran Crown, which explains how one of the true prestige artists of the blues ended up on such a notoriously cheap-o label.) As was often the case with Crown's product, The Blues used a single hit tune (in this case "When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer," a Top Ten R&B chart entry in 1954) to help sell a package of lesser-known material, but thankfully the label also picked some great tunes that hardly sound like filler, even if they didn't make the charts.

Originally released in 1958 by the budget-priced Crown label, The Blues collected a dozen sides B.B. King cut for RPM and Kent between 1951 and 1958…

The 2012 two-disc anthology The Blues King's Best compiles many of legendary guitarist B.B. King's recordings. The first disc features studio recordings from 1949 to 1960 and the second disc showcases live recordings from various dates over the years – some well past 1960. Included are such stellar studio recordings as "B.B. Boogie," "Please Love Me," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "The Thrill Is Gone," "How Blue Can You Get?," and many others. This a solid collection that works well as a thorough overview of King's long career.

This compilation includes early recordings by B.B. King, in particular, from the album My Kind Of Blues (1961).

This impressive, impeccably packaged four-CD box set focuses solely on B.B. King's 1950s and 1960s recordings for the Modern family of labels. That was a period that basically encompassed the vast majority of his work prior to 1962, though he did a few non-Modern sides before signing with ABC Paramount in early 1962 and did a few other sides for Modern in the mid-'60s. So this is basically a box-set overview of King's early career, one that saw him score many R&B hits and build a career as a blues legend, even as the blues were falling out of fashion in favor of rock and soul. As many tracks as there are here - 106 in all, four of them previously unreleased - this isn't a catchall roundup of everything the prolific King did for the label…

True, this 1973 vintage best-of album covers a ridiculously slim wedge of time in the blues king's long career. Yet this period was quite significant, for it marks the crest of B.B. King's initial entry into the pop music mass market – and this album surfs succinctly, if not comprehensively, over the high points of his turn-of-the-decade winning streak. There's a potent slice of King's triumphant Live at Cook County – one of his sassiest "How Blue Can You Get?" on records – the huge hit "The Thrill Is Gone" extracts from his surprisingly pleasing early excursions into pop/rock territory on In London and Indianola Mississippi Seeds, and plenty of flavorful electric blues ("Sweet Sixteen," "Why I Sing the Blues") at full length. There are some quirks – "Caldonia" is shortened because one of the unnamed participants on the session demanded the cut, and the "compatible stereo/quad" sound on the LP has some details drastically mixed down when it's played back in ordinary stereo.

n a jaw-gnashing exercise of discographical loggerheads, The Soul of B.B. King was just a retitled version of a King album previously released on the Crown label, B.B. King. Further muddling the record-keeping, The Soul of B.B. King would appear on both the United and Custom labels (both of which were, like Crown, budget imprints of the Modern Records company)…