Light On Dark Water

52 Guitars: Week 35

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.

Maclin Horton
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19 responses to “52 Guitars: Week 35”

  1. Grumpy

    Listening to 52 Guitars while I clean the house is my Sunday morning ritual.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Excellent!

    Reply
  3. Craig

    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.

    Reply
  4. Grumpy

    It is fantastic

    Reply
  5. Mac

    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.

    Reply
  6. Janet

    I guess that’s a good thing about downtown Memphis.
    AMDG

    Reply
  7. Mac

    B.B. King lives there?

    Reply
  8. Janet

    No, but he has a club on Beale Street and he comes here sometimes.
    AMDG

    Reply
  9. Janet

    Not that I’ve ever been there, but Steve posts pictures of it.
    AMDG

    Reply
  10. Mac

    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.

    Reply
  11. Janet

    I don’t know. After I wrote that I was wondering if he was still alive.
    AMDG

    Reply
  12. Janet

    Looks like he is. He’ll be 89 on the 16th. Just about a month younger than my mother.
    AMDG

    Reply
  13. Mac

    I figured I would have heard about it if he’d died, but not necessarily if he’d stopped performing.

    Reply
  14. Janet

    Well, I would have heard about it, I just couldn’t remember if I’d heard about it.
    AMDG

    Reply
  15. Grumpy

    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.

    Reply
  16. Mac

    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.

    Reply
  17. Grumpy

    Ok Im going for it!

    Reply
  18. Rob G

    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.

    Reply
  19. Mac

    Pretty amazing for an 89-year-old.
    One reservation about Live at the Regal: it’s very short, just under 35 minutes.

    Reply

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