b King

Prison performances are sort of a standard for blues singers, and it just doesn't get any better than this - B.B. King playing his classics live at the San Quentin Correctional facility. Here King is playing to a truly captive audience offering up such classics as "The Thrill is Gone," "Sweet 16," "In the Heat of the Night," and "Nobody Loves Me But My Mother." In the intro to that last selection King explains to the inmates that while the blues was not just about hard times, some of the tunes could be pretty depressing. "Some of it can be pretty down alley. Like I'm fixing to do right now. I'm going all the way down to the bottom." Yet he also encourages the audience to go on and boogie off some of the uptempo tracks. This is music from the heart, and you can just feel the soul of the artist…

B.B. King has cut a lot of albums since the success of Live at the Regal. And, like the live shows they document, none of them are any less than solid and professional, hallmarks of King's work aesthetic. But every so often B.B. truly catches fire; his playing and singing comes up an extra notch or two, and the result is a live album with some real sparks to it. Live in Cook County Jail is one of those great concerts that the record company was smart enough to be there to capture, documenting B.B. firing on all cylinders in front of an audience that's just damn happy for him to be there. Possibly the best live version of "The Thrill Is Gone" of all its many incarnations, and rock solid renditions of classics like "Everyday I Have the Blues," "How Blue Can You Get?," "Sweet Sixteen" and a great medley of "3 O'Clock Blues" and "Darlin' You Know I Love You"…

There are both good and bad points to this CD. Of the latter, the Phillip Morris "Super Band" is confined to background work with - other than a few spots for Plas Johnson's tenor - no soloists being heard from. As an ensemble, the all-star orchestra performs well, but is essentially anonymous. Also, despite the backing, B.B. King does not attempt to play jazz, a wasted opportunity. But, switching to the good points, Live at the Apollo is an excellent example of a strong B.B. King live performance. Somehow he always makes his combination of blues and familiar hits sound fresh. With a liberal amount of space set aside for his guitar solos, B.B. is in top form throughout the well-paced set, which is far superior to most of his overproduced studio sessions for MCA. Even if the big band is mostly irrelevant, this CD is recommended for B.B. King's singing and playing.

This 1979 effort finds B.B. interpreting a number of pop-blues tunes, many of them co-written by Will Jennings and co-producer Joe Sample, with King co-writing two of the songs aboard. Even with a large, contemporary backdrop (including a seven-piece horn section and female backup singers), there's still plenty of room for B.B.'s stinging guitar and stentorian vocals in the mix. Highlights include the gospel-tinged "Better Not Look Down," "Same Old Story (Same Old Song)," "Happy Birthday Blues," "The Beginning of the End" and the title track. As one of B.B.'s more pop-oriented offerings, this succeeds admirably.

Universal's double-disc Icon doubles the size of their single-disc set of the same name and covers the same ground only in greater detail, adding a few more live tracks and studio staples to draw a greater picture of his ABC and MCA recordings of the late ‘60s, ‘70s, and beyond. It’s a bit shorter than 2006’s Gold and not quite as rounded, yet it’s still a very good sampler of B.B. King at his latter-day best.

This is B.B. King's most delightful recording of the '90s. He duets with other blues greats, including Koko Taylor ("Something You Got"), Buddy Guy ("I Pity the Fool"), Etta James ("There's Something on Your Mind"), Ruth Brown ("You're the Boss"), and his dear friend John Lee Hooker ("You Shook Me"). The peaks come in his guitar shootout with Texas Telecaster slinger Albert Collins on "Call It Stormy Monday" and his high-spirited run-in with Katie Webster, who steals their performance of "Since I Met You Baby" with her saucy asides.

Japanese compilation.
Universally hailed as the king of the blues, the legendary B.B. King was without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century. His bent notes and staccato picking style influenced legions of contemporary bluesmen, while his gritty and confident voice - capable of wringing every nuance from any lyric - provided a worthy match for his passionate playing. Between 1951 and 1985, King notched an impressive 74 entries on Billboard's R&B charts, and he was one of the few full-fledged blues artists to score a major pop hit when his 1970 smash "The Thrill Is Gone" crossed over to mainstream success (engendering memorable appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand)…

Japanese Edition with 4 bonus tracks.
In theory, a B.B. King album featuring 13 duets with a variety of different artists could be spectacular, but Deuces Wild feels like it was conceived with the bottom line in mind. Instead of choosing artists who would complement B.B., the producers assembled a lineup that would appeal to a broad audience, from old blues fans and rockers to contemporary country, urban R&B, and hip-hop fans. Not surprisingly, the end result is quite uneven, ranging from the sublime to the terribly awkward. It also comes as no surprise that the veterans acquit themselves the best - Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Joe Cocker, and Willie Nelson all sound terrific, while the Rolling Stones' support on "Paying the Cost to Be the Boss" positively smokes…