B.B. King - The RPM/Kent box

This is a one time post, when it is gone, it is gone...uploading something this big is a lot of work,

B B King - Lucille (1967)

I had a reissue vinyl...way back and loved it ...But I got this as a d/l ages ago and thanks to the original poster... Great sound courtesy of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab / UltradiscII cd.
A BB you might not have...but essential ! Dedicated to KC and Cliff ,,,Blues Brothers - Gus

B.B. King - My Kind of Blues 1960

Listening to this right now and I feel compelled to share. Not everyone has access to all the old stuff so I think this is a fine example of what BB was like before he got 'discovered' by white folk. Sorry, but the truth is the truth.

B B King - Live At The Apollo (1991)

Live at the Apollo is a Blues album by B.B. King and the Phillip Morris "Super Band" recorded at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. It was awarded the 1992 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

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. (AllMusic Review by Scott Yanow)

B.B. King - Treasures Untold

Another gift from our favorite Unky! You may have heard that P-Vine put out a limited edition 17 discs and one LP set of B.B. King that is the nearest to complete set ever produced. Of course Cliff had to have it and managed, thru a mutual friend with Japanese connections, to acquire the beast. At some point down the road the rest of the collection will appear, but for now here is the LP that comes in the set. Most of these tracks have never been issued anywhere and the likelihood that you would have even the couple that have is very slim.

B.B. King - Let The Good Times Roll & One Kind Favor

A pair of albums that made it clear that B.B.'s creative juices did not desert him with age - the first is a terrifically fun album of Louis Jordan music from 1999 where the King has Earl Palmer, Dr. John, Hank Crawford and David 'Fathead' Newman along for the ride. Turns out that his highness should have played jump blues more often because he is terrific at it!

The second album comes from 2008 and here B.B. is often stripped down to a quartet with Dr. John, Jim Keltner and Nathan East and a well textured horn section that never upstages the star. A precious dozen killer blues songs that King had never previously recorded - this one grows on you.

B.B. King Sings Spirituals [1960]

Brother King sings one for us from God's staircase...goodbye old friend, you remain in our thoughts and prayers.

B.B. King - The Vintage Years

My heart groans, the sky is crying -- another icon of my age has passed. The King is dead--Long Live The King ...NY Times obit

King was born in a small cabin on a cotton plantation outside of Berclair, Mississippi, to Albert King and Nora Ella Farr on September 16, 1925.

In 1930, when King was four years old, his father abandoned the family, and his mother married another man. Because Nora Ella was too poor to raise her son, King was raised by his maternal grandmother Elnora Farr in Kilmichael, Mississippi. Over the years, King has developed one of the world's most identifiable guitar styles. He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, integrating his precise and complex vocal-like string bends and his left hand vibrato, both of which have become indispensable components of rock guitarist's vocabulary. His economy and phrasing has been a model for thousands of players, from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jeff Beck. King has mixed traditional blues, jazz, swing, mainstream pop, and jump into a unique sound. In King's words, "When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille." King grew up singing in the gospel choir at Elkhorn Baptist Church in Kilmichael. At the age of 12, he purchased his first guitar for $15.00 although another reference indicates he was given his first guitar by his cousin, Bukka White. In 1943, King left Kilmichael to work as a tractor driver and play guitar with the Famous St. John's Quartet of Inverness, Mississippi, performing at area churches and on WGRM in Greenwood, Mississippi.

In 1946, King followed his cousin Bukka White to Memphis, Tennessee. White took him in for the next ten months. However, King shortly returned to Mississippi, where he decided to prepare himself better for the next visit, and returned to West Memphis, Arkansas, two years later in 1948. He performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM in West Memphis, where he began to develop a local audience for his sound. King's appearances led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis and later to a ten-minute spot on the legendary Memphis radio station WDIA. King's Spot became so popular, it was expanded and became the Sepia Swing Club.

Initially he worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, gaining the nickname Beale Street Blues Boy, which was later shortened to Blues Boy and finally to B.B. It was there that he first met T-Bone Walker. "Once I'd heard him for the first time, I knew I'd have to have [an electric guitar] myself. 'Had' to have one, short of stealing!", he said.

In 1949, King began recording songs under contract with Los Angeles-based RPM Records. Many of King's early recordings were produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. Before his RPM contract, King had debuted on Bullet Records by issuing the single "Miss Martha King" (1949), which did not chart well. "My very first recordings [in 1949] were for a company out of Nashville called Bullet, the Bullet Record Transcription company," King recalls. "I had horns that very first session. I had Phineas Newborn on piano; his father played drums, and his brother, Calvin, played guitar with me. I had Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch on tenor sax, his brother, Thomas Branch, on trumpet, and a lady trombone player. The Newborn family were the house band at the famous Plantation Inn in West Memphis."

Performing with his famous guitar, Lucille King assembled his own band; the B.B. King Review, under the leadership of Millard Lee. The band initially consisted of Calvin Owens and Kenneth Sands (trumpet), Lawrence Burdin (alto saxophone), George Coleman (tenor saxophone), Floyd Newman (baritone saxophone), Millard Lee (piano), George Joyner (bass) and Earl Forest and Ted Curry (drums). Onzie Horne was a trained musician elicited as an arranger to assist King with his compositions. By his own admission, he cannot play chords well and always relies on improvisation. This was followed by tours across the USA with performances in major theaters in cities such as Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit and St. Louis, as well as numerous gigs in small clubs and juke joints of the southern US states.

In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. In order to heat the hall, a barrel half-filled with kerosene was lit, a fairly common practice at the time. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the burning barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. The hall burst into flames, which triggered an evacuation. Once outside, King realized that he had left his guitar inside the burning building. He entered the blaze to retrieve his beloved guitar, a Gibson hollow electric. Two people died in the fire. The next day, King learned that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. King named that first guitar Lucille, as well as every one he owned since that near-fatal experience, as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over women.

King meanwhile toured the entire "Chitlin' circuit" and 1956 became a record-breaking year, with 342 concerts booked. The same year he founded his own record label, Blues Boys Kingdom, with headquarters at Beale Street in Memphis. There, among other projects, he produced artists such as Millard Lee and Levi Seabury.

In the 1950s, B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music, amassing an impressive list of hits including "3 O'Clock Blues", "You Know I Love You," "Woke Up This Morning," "Please Love Me," "When My Heart Beats like a Hammer," "Whole Lotta Love," "You Upset Me Baby," "Every Day I Have the Blues", "Sneakin' Around," "Ten Long Years," "Bad Luck," "Sweet Little Angel", "On My Word of Honor," and "Please Accept My Love." In 1962, King signed to ABC-Paramount Records, which was later absorbed into MCA Records, and this hence into his current label, Geffen Records. In November 1964, King recorded the Live at the Regal album at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois.

B.B. King - Blues Is King...plus

To compliment KC's live B B King post - Here is the other great live 60's recording made by the master B B King.
Charles Sawyer, in his 'B B King - The Authorized Biography', has this to say about this album, released in 1967 :

"This album is my own favorite. More than the Regal performance, recorded in a cavernous theater, this performance, taped in a Chicago nightclub, catches B.B. at the height of his powers as a  performer. All B.B.'s studio cuts miss one thing which is pivotal in his live performances: the unique voice of his instrument. The rich, sonorous sound of his sustained notes and the harsh edge of his attack seem to disappear before studio microphones. This recording has them both, full-blown, and the intimate atmosphere of a nightclub is thick in every groove. B.B.'s guitar solos are among his very best, marred only slightly by the use of reverb in places ( an uncharacteristic choice for him )."

I agree with this view but see both albums as essential to any Blues collection  - The '...plus' in the title refers to the added single 45 release ( A & B sides - Sweet Sixteen Parts 1 & 2 )  taken from the same gig and not included on the original release. Enjoy

B.B. King - Live At The Regal

Over in the chatbox Gus mentioned that it would be nice to see B.B. in a small venue - that made me think of this absolute essential album. The Regal isn't juke joint sized by any means, but it is a good deal smaller than most places you could have seen King at anytime over the last 20 years or more.

If you had to limit yourself to one BB King album, this 1965 live album is the one I would recommend. Everything clearly clicked this night, the band, B.B., the audience...all are just electric. Sure, you have heard every tune here a hundred times --- never better than this tho.

(Ooops, the first picture was the wrong place according to Cliff who has been there...sooo I believe I've found the right place...a little earlier than 1965 by my guess but pretty close. The movie on the marquee would place this picture around 1960.)

B.B. King - The Jungle

The RPM and Kent recordings of B.B. King have been comprehensively anthologised on Ace, particularly in the last couple of years with the expanded reissues of B.B.’s Crown albums of the 1950s and early 1960s. However, there are still several B.B. projects on the Ace agenda, and we kick off 2008 with the man’s first entry in the Hip Pocket series – a ‘straight from the original master tape’ reissue of the man’s 1967 Kent album, “The Jungle”.

Of course, B.B. had left the Bihari brothers’ recording empire more than five years before an overdubbed version of the late 50s demo of The Jungle took him to #17 R&B / #94 Pop in the early summer of ’67. Its success merited the release of a full album, assembled from sessions that B.B. had cut mostly towards the end of his Kent tenure, and so it was that “The Jungle” also became the title of his first long player on Kent Records, eventually finding its way onto the various budget labels that were the Biharis’ main financial bread and butter during the late 60s and early 70s.

As well as giving collectors a chance to enjoy the original sleeve, featuring a red-suited Arthur Adams – in profile – masquerading as the Blues Boy, it also gives us a change to hear a original Kent album exactly as it was first released, with alternate stereo mixes and overdubs – some of which are different to those on overdubbed versions released elsewhere – on otherwise familiar tracks. These alternate mixes have never been available on CD before now, making it a must-buy for the B.B. completist