52 Guitars: Week 35
08/30/2014
B.B. King
It's time for the Three Kings: Albert, B.B., and Freddy. B.B. is by far the most famous outside the blues world, but that's not why I'm featuring him first. It's because it only took a few minutes for me to find three good YouTube clips for him, and I need a bit longer for the other two.
According to the person who posted this on YouTube, King considers this to be one of his best performances. It was filmed at Sing Sing Prison, sometimes in the 1970s judging by the clothes. And I think that opening guy was on a TV show that I can't remember the name of. This is one of his signature songs, "How Blue Can You Get?" There's actually not all that much guitar in this number, but wow....
The first line of this is one of my favorite lyrics in all the blues.
And the classic "Stormy Monday":
Coincidentally, I've been watching the DVD of Eric Clapton's 2007 Crossroads Festival. B.B. King is there, and he gives quite a moving tribute to Clapton. That segment of the concert is on YouTube, including parts of one of the songs he played, the massively politically incorrect "Paying the Cost to Be the Boss." And by the way I strongly recommend that DVD to anyone who likes electric guitar.
Listening to 52 Guitars while I clean the house is my Sunday morning ritual.
Posted by: Grumpy | 08/31/2014 at 02:52 PM
Excellent!
Posted by: Mac | 08/31/2014 at 03:49 PM
Fantastic. I'm not a big fan of the blues, but there's something about BB King. I had the good fortune to hear him live some years ago, and it was terrific.
Posted by: Craig | 09/02/2014 at 08:07 PM
It is fantastic
Posted by: Grumpy | 09/02/2014 at 08:25 PM
My own taste in blues tends to run more toward the rougher and less polished, but B.B. is great. His solos go further afield from the the straight blues vocabulary, but without losing the feeling. He's also a great vocalist.
Posted by: Mac | 09/02/2014 at 09:21 PM
I guess that's a good thing about downtown Memphis.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 09:09 AM
B.B. King lives there?
Posted by: Mac | 09/03/2014 at 12:17 PM
No, but he has a club on Beale Street and he comes here sometimes.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 12:50 PM
Not that I've ever been there, but Steve posts pictures of it.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 12:50 PM
Probably some good music to be heard there. I wonder if B.B. is still performing. He's 81 in that Crossroads video I linked to, and he didn't seem in good health. And that was seven years ago.
Posted by: Mac | 09/03/2014 at 02:04 PM
I don't know. After I wrote that I was wondering if he was still alive.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 02:47 PM
Looks like he is. He'll be 89 on the 16th. Just about a month younger than my mother.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 02:48 PM
I figured I would have heard about it if he'd died, but not necessarily if he'd stopped performing.
Posted by: Mac | 09/03/2014 at 05:36 PM
Well, I would have heard about it, I just couldn't remember if I'd heard about it.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 09/03/2014 at 07:19 PM
I didn't know he was still alive. I think I will get a CD by him. I was never that much into the blues.
Posted by: Grumpy | 09/03/2014 at 07:29 PM
The one that used to be required listening is Live at the Regal, from 1965. He has a whole lot of recordings and I think the quality is pretty uneven. Surely there's some kind of decent compilation.
Good grief, the list of compilations at AllMusic goes on and on and on. Maybe one of those that has a 5-star review? But you can't go wrong with Live at the Regal.
Posted by: Mac | 09/03/2014 at 10:21 PM
Ok Im going for it!
Posted by: Grumpy | 09/04/2014 at 04:46 AM
He's playing here in Pittsburgh next month. Looks like the current tour contains only about a dozen stops, most of them in the NE and Midwest.
Posted by: Rob G | 09/04/2014 at 07:02 AM
Pretty amazing for an 89-year-old.
One reservation about Live at the Regal: it's very short, just under 35 minutes.
Posted by: Mac | 09/04/2014 at 09:22 AM