Freddie King

This Atlanta concert wasn't issued in recorded form for two decades. Archival releases of this sort tend to be for collectors only, but this is a cut above the standard. The sound is very good, the band is pretty tight, and Freddie King solos with fire and sings with conviction, sticking mostly to covers of warhorses like "Dust My Broom," "Key to the Highway," and "Sweet Home Chicago." It's a better deal, in fact, than his studio albums for Shelter in the early '70s, boasting a no-frills small-combo approach that is far more suitable. As a neat bonus, it also contains two solo acoustic performances recorded at a Dallas radio station in the 1970s.

Interesting little hodgepodge of various Freddie King recordings between 1974 and 1976. Freddie was one of the all time Blues greats. Even Eric Clapton was quoted as saying "Until I met Freddie, I just played the guitar. Freddie taught me how to make love to it." And with such great players like Eric Clapton, George Terry, Jamie Oldecker, & Carl Raddle, and the song "Sugar Sweet", produced by the late great Tom Dowd, this album is a must have to any Blues music library.

Produced in part by Mike Vernon, who worked on The Legendary Christine Perfect Album, this is an entertaining and concise package of ten songs performed by the late Freddie King and a slew of guests. Opening with Gonzalez Chandler's "Pack It Up," featuring the Gonzalez Horn Section, the youthful legend was only 40 years of age when he cut this career LP two years before his death. Though no songs went up the charts like his Top Five hit in 1961, "Hide Away," Burglar is one of those gems that journeymen can put together in their sleep. Tom Dowd produced "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, FL, featuring Jamie Oldaker on drums, Carl Radle on bass, and guitarists Eric Clapton and George Terry, which, of course, makes this album highly collectable in the Clapton circles. The sound doesn't deviate much from the rest of the disc's Mike Vernon production work; it is pure Freddy King, like on the final track, E. King's "Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)," where his guitar bursts through the horns and party atmosphere, creating a fusion of the pure blues found on "Sugar Sweet" and the rock that fans of Grand Funk grooved to when he opened for that group and was immortalized in their 1973 number one hit "We're an American Band" a year after this record's release.

Similar to his first Shelter outing (Getting Ready), but with more of a rock feel. That's due as much to the material as the production. Besides covering tunes by Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James, King tackles compositions by Leon Russell and, more unexpectedly, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes-David Porter, and John Fogerty (whose "Lodi" is reworked into "Lowdown in Lodi"). King's own pen remained virtually in retirement, as he wrote only one of the album's tracks.

King's last Shelter album was his most elaborately produced, with occasional string arrangements and female backups vocals, although these didn't really detract from the net result. Boasting perhaps heavier rock elements than his other Shelter efforts, it was characteristically divided between blues standards (by the likes of Willie Dixon and Elmore James), Leon Russell tunes, and more R&B/soul-inclined material by the likes of Ray Charles and Percy Mayfield.

Similar to his first Shelter outing (Getting Ready), but with more of a rock feel. That's due as much to the material as the production. Besides covering tunes by Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James, King tackles compositions by Leon Russell and, more unexpectedly, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes-David Porter, and John Fogerty (whose "Lodi" is reworked into "Lowdown in Lodi"). King's own pen remained virtually in retirement, as he wrote only one of the album's tracks.

The mid-to-late Sixties was a strange and difficult time for many Blues men - most were without contracts, forgotten and under-appreciated. Then the Blues boom happened (particularly in the UK) and many had their careers kick-started all over again. Freddie King was no exception. His last album had been for Federal in 1964, but with a new lease of life on the mighty Atlantic label, he produced two much revered LPs in rapid succession. The first was "Freddie King Is A Blues Master" released in 1969 on SD 9004 - and then this peach - "My Feeling For The Blues" on Cotillion SD 9016 released in early 1970.

King's Shelter years were covered in toto on the 1995 double-CD King of the Blues, which had everything from all three of his Shelter albums and then some. Although all of the 18 songs on this single-disc anthology were on King of the Blues, this is a more manageable survey of the same era. Not an era, it should be said, that was King's best, with more ordinary material and less canny production than was used on his best earlier work. It does, however, have some of the better cuts from his 1970s recordings, such as "Going Down," "Lowdown in Lodi," the string-drenched Leon Russell tune "Help Me Through the Day," the brassy instrumental "Guitar Boogie," and covers of chestnuts like "Reconsider Baby," "I'd Rather Be Blind," and "Please Send Me Someone to Love."

Of the three blues Kings, Freddie King often gets overshadowed by B.B. and Albert, so he's in need of a collection like Real Gone's The Complete King & Federal Singles, a two-disc set that rounds up all his greatest work. Sitting alongside these classics, songs so firmly embedded in our consciousness he sometimes doesn't get the credit he deserves - songs like "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," "Hideaway," "San-Ho-Zay!," "The Stumble," "I'm Tore Down" - there are singles where Freddie rode the wave of what was popular. He tried to dance "The Bossa Nova Watusi Twist," he flirted with a bit of funk, he got slick and greasy toward the end of the '60s, never winding up with chart success but never embarrassing himself…