B B King The Blues

Over-glossed R&B tracks, heavy doses of keyboards and drum programming are an ideal way to make albums for the pop charts, but for B.B. King, they are tools of disaster. Lyrically and vocally the album holds up rather well. …

Recorded in the fall of 2006, shortly after B.B. King's 81st birthday, Live is really an abridged audio complement to a video release, containing 12 of the 19 tracks available on the DVD of the same title. King has made a lot of live albums in his time, but his approach hasn't changed much over the years. In addition to his obvious talents as a guitarist and showman, he has also been fortunate in that his chosen style of music, a version of the blues growing out of the swing-influenced jump blues of the 1940s, has not only remained perennially popular but grown in acceptance. As performed here by the B.B. King Blues Band, it is still essentially the same, a jazzy roadhouse music that leaves plenty of room for solos. At one time, most of those solos were played by King on his guitar, but now he is content to give the showcase to his horn players, as he does on "Blues Man," or organist James Toney, who claims the lion's share of "Rock Me Baby." There is still plenty of guitar work, however, and King remains seemingly as agile as ever. He is also a relaxed, comfortable frontman, engaging in easy banter with both band and audience.

B.B. King - Complete Recordings 1949-1962; 6 CDs, 168 tracks, over 8 hours of music B.B. King, known as The King of the Blues, and indeed one of the Three Kings of Blues Guitar (along with namesakes Albert and Freddie) was amongst the finest guitarists and vocalists to ever grace the genre. He has featured in Rolling Stones 100 and Gibsons 50 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, reaching 6 and 17 respectively. Across the six discs comprising this boxed set lie the foundations of one of the most enduring legacies in all of the blues. Featuring more than 160 cuts and over eight hours of music, this compilation will surely remain the ultimate collection of B.B. Kings output a catalogue which most blues fans regard as home to some of the finest music ever released.