B.B. King – The Best Of B.B. King, Volume 1 –  Flair 2-91691

For decades, B.B. King was rightfully the most visible, influential, and broadly known blues artist due to his nonstop touring, plus owing to his massively popular 1970 success “The Thrill Is Gone”, a blues classic that remains eminently identifiable with King, and a triumph these 53 years later.  Until this tune achieved its lofty chart status, the blues endured a position chiefly as a musical style accepted and valued, on a whole, by Blacks and pockets of youthful White fans.  But King earned his broad-based blues approval by way of “The Thrill Is Gone”, bringing the blues into homes the world over.  King’s blues style relied upon highly basic, yet extremely effectual single-string guitar runs.  A swinging characteristic envelops King’s up-tempo songs, and a sorrowful, tortured sensation surrounds his more somber tunes.  His guitar solos became expansions of his vocals, whatever the tenor of the song.  When one listens to King’s blues, it can be accurately said that the arrangements pour so well and smoothly that they seem to be polished to a brilliant gleam.  A listener is seized by just how painstaking and concise the emotion of a King song can be expressed.  In short, King’s works are unadulterated and straightforward, yet astonishingly victorious.  King’s vocals unveil anxiety on the darker tunes, and yet madly celebrate on the buoyant numbers.  These original R.P.M., Modern, and Kent label cuts are some of King’s best efforts, dating from the 1950s.  They abound with swinging horns, powerful vocals, always with a delicate back-and-forth, advancing this compilation an arresting energy.  One aside, “Beautician Blues” is nearly as flawless a blues song that can be squeezed into a two-minute format. 

Below are the running tracks of this essential CD.  This needs to be in any serious blues collection!

Song Titles

• You Upset Me Baby
• Every Day (I Have The Blues)
• 5 Long Years
• Sweet Little Angel
• Beautician Blues
• Dust My Broom
• Three O’Clock Blues
• Aint That Just Like A Woman
• I’m King
• Sweet Sixteen
• A Whole Lot Of Lovin’
• Mean Ole Frisco
• Please Accept My Love
• Going Down Slow
• Blues For Me
• You Don’t Know
• Early Every Morning
• Blues At Sunrise
• Please Love Me