King Woman

Over the years, the music world has seen its share of over-70 singers who kept performing even though they didn't have much of a voice left: Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra are among the names that come to mind. But when B.B. King entered his 70s, the veteran blues singer/guitarist could still belt it out with confidence, and he does exactly that on Makin' Love Is Good for You, which was recorded when King was 74…

‘Deborah contains some of the most glorious music Handel ever wrote. Even if many of the numbers have been recycled from earlier works, the invention is still staggering. Handel devotees can thus amuse themselves spotting the tunes while everyone else can revel in the sumptuous scoring and the sheer vitality and humanity of the piece, all superbly conveyed in Robert King's recording’.

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…

Recorded live in Hamburg and Bremen, Germany, 1975.
Guitarist Freddie King rode to fame in the early '60s with a spate of catchy instrumentals which became instant bandstand fodder for fellow bluesmen and white rock bands alike. Employing a more down-home (thumb and finger picks) approach to the B.B. King single-string style of playing, King enjoyed success on a variety of different record labels. Furthermore, he was one of the first bluesmen to employ a racially integrated group on-stage behind him. Influenced by Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, and Robert Jr. Lockwood, King went on to influence the likes of Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack, among many others.

Double-CD compilation that includes all three of the albums King recorded for Leon Russell's Shelter label in the early 1970s, as well as some other cuts (half a dozen of which were previously unissued) recorded around the same period. King's vocal and guitar-playing skills remained intact when he joined Shelter, but these recordings aren't among his best. That's partially because he was playing with rock-oriented sidemen, and partially because the material - divided between covers of blues standards, contemporary rock and soul items, and songs written by Leon Russell - wasn't especially exciting or sympathetic. Most crucial was the near-total absence of material from the pen of King himself. Although this set isn't bad, when you want to turn to classic King, you'll go elsewhere, particularly to the sides he recorded for the King label in the '60s.

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…

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.