Review: B. B. King - King Of The Blues (1960)

Tracks: 1) I’ve Got A Right To Love My Baby; 2) What Way To Go; 3) Long Nights; 4) Feel Like A Million; 5) I’ll Survive; 6) Good Man Gone Bad; 7) If I Lost You; 8) You’re On The Top; 9) Partin’ Time; 10) I’m King.

REVIEW

Not to be confused with the sprawling 4-CD anthology of the same title, spanning B. B. King’s entire career from 1949 to 1991 that MCA released in the 1990s, King Of The Blues is originally just another of the many, generally interchangeable, LPs from the man’s Crown catalog. Just like B. B. King Wails, it was also released as a proper album, largely consisting of takes from fresh recording sessions — and although the album as such is no longer officially credited to «B. B. King And His Orchestra», the large brass band presence is still carried over from previous sessions. Other than that, it is hard to find any general features that would somehow distinguish this particular collection from its surroundings, so instead I’ll just offer a few observations on individual songs.

‘I’ve Got A Right To Love My Baby’, opening the album, would also become the first single to be taken off it; I do believe that the pompously «winding» brass riff of the intro (it also regularly announces the transition to a new verse throughout) makes it instantaneously more memorable than anything else on here — but I am not quite as sure if, mood-wise, it really fits the standard 12-bar blues pattern of the number. Few songs in B. B.’s catalog have this «Vegas fanfare» and «Chicago blues» idioms coming together in a more explicit fashion — and maybe this is precisely because the result feels a little clumsy, as if that brass department were trying to hijack the song and turn it into a different direction from the will of the vocals and the sharp-as-usual guitar solo. Still, with all of King’s songwriting limitations, even an odd fit of a brass riff is enough to give a song of his extra personality, something that he always finds himself in need of.

Conversely, although ‘Long Nights (The Feeling They Call The Blues)’ is nothing special in terms of structure, it is one of King’s most soulful early performances — no, still nowhere near the Otis Rush level of emotion, but with just enough wobbling and trepidation in the voice to suggest that here, B. B. goes slightly beyond formula and really, really tries to convey the "feeling they call the blues" to the listener. It also contains one of his most expressive solo breaks to date, where he rises to new heights in the art of sustaining his blue notes as he slowly, but steadily tries to expand the lexicon of his «talking guitar». It’s all just transitional, really, from the earlier, dryer style of the 1950s to the development of the super-smooth B. B. King guitar idiom in the late 1960s, but if you just go through this particular period album by album, life itself will eventually teach you to notice all those subtlest of nuances.

Arguably the most important song on the album in terms of King’s overall career is ‘I’ll Survive’, a relaxed and confident blues, generally based on the old pattern of ‘Sittin’ On Top Of The World’ — not coincidentally, the lyrics in this one, too, are all about coming to terms with a painful breakup and convincing oneself that life still goes on, at least as long as your favorite burger joint on the corner is still open. This one seems to be such an important mission statement for King that he even reduces his guitar playing to a minimum number of licks, letting the piano player do most of the instrumental work as he gets busy convincing the woman who walked out on him that "I’ve got too much pride, but I’ll survive". Compared to ‘Sittin’ On Top Of The World’, a song all about the masking of one’s true feelings with fake bravado, ‘I’ll Survive’ shows more soul and vulnerability, but the end result is more smooth and optimistic — the thing is, for B. B. King the blues is actually a bitter medicine for survival, a seance of personal psychotherapy to get you back on your feet, and most of his big anthems, be it ‘I’ll Survive’ or ‘The Thrill Is Gone’, are supposed to leave you uplifted in the end. Hey, no wonder the guy ended up living a good life of 90 years.

One might, in fact, argue that B. B. King has his own definition of the «blues», as seen from the final track on the album, the aptly titled ‘I’m King’: "I’ve been around the world, seen everything / And if it’s love you want baby just give me a ring / I can’t lose with the stuff I use / I’m the king of the blues" (sung to pretty much the same melody as ‘I’ll Survive’). Judging by this logic, «to have the blues» = «to move from one woman to another», a practice to which Mr. King has indeed held true for most of his life, and not feeling any particular guilt about it, which makes guys like Don Giovanni and Casanova into arguably the greatest bluesmen of them all. (Unless, of course, the actual implication is that B. B. King simply uses his Level 80+ blues-playing skills — "I can’t lose with the stuff I use" — to win over the ladies, which should make us doubt his moral qualities even more). But we are not here to judge, certainly not situations of which we know fairly little; we are here to take or leave B. B. King’s conception of «smooth blues», and my main problem with it is that it seems to go down much better with a healthy meal than a broken heart. Which is why B. B. King will probably never be my best friend in times when I’m in trouble — but when I’m in a fairly upbeat mood, an album like this is a good reminder that you always have to be ready to whack that bit of upcoming trouble on the corner on the head with a nice, juicy cheeseburger.

Technical fact: be aware that the album, with a slightly different track list (‘Partin’ Time’ replaced by ‘That Evil Child’), would later be reissued on the Kent label in 1971 as Better Than Ever (not really!), and that there are even occasional CD versions of it floating around. Also, B. B. seems to remember the record rather fondly, since no fewer than three numbers off it (‘I’ll Survive’, ‘If I Lost You’, and ‘Good Man Gone Bad’) would later be re-recorded for his Blues On The Bayou album, as late as 1998 — in similar, but longer and more guitar-heavy versions, making the earlier takes only preferable if you really enjoy the man’s younger, less croaky voice.

• Only Solitaire Reviews: B. B. King