Album Review: "Live At The Regal" by B.B. King

Live At The Regal

Many times in my life someone has said how much they love the blues or something like that. Honestly, even just hearing "the blues" has always sounded a bit strange to my ears.

Most of my heroes talk about old bluesmen. As stated, many of my friends and family love the blues. My guitar teacher talks about 12 bar blues all the time. (Now I do too.) So now, it's time to really begin looking into this music.

So, after looking into, mostly modern blues and quite a bit of later stuff in the past few weeks, let's turn to an elder statesman of the blues, B.B. King, and see if he has anything to offer. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek)

This album is an exercise in the 12 bar blues. From the first to the last track, B.B. sings his tales of woe and shows how he has made quite a career basing his songs off of just three chords in a very simple progression.

The recommendations that were coming in over and over were, if you buy B.B., buy a live record. The energy of the live performance will enhance the songs.

This particular statement is very wonderfully correct. For thirty four  minutes, B.B. King and co play through several blues standards and a few originals to wonderful effect. Mr. King was in full voice and his backing band kept the rhythm while B.B. sang and played some electric guitar. The sound of his hollow bodied Gibson is razor sharp and I didn't detect any mistakes made in his playing. When B.B. is not singing, Lucille is. The two of them create a spectacular dichotomy.

More and more electric blues is finding its way into my library, and when the albums are as fun as this one, I cannot see why they shouldn't? B.B.'s guitar is just delightfully mournful and his voice is as strong as an ox. With songs like "It's My Own Fault" and "Please Love Me," B.B. shows why he was considered the king of the blues.

This is a perfect snapshot of this man from his prime, nearly fifty years ago.

Genre: Blues
Year: 1965
Run time: 34:46

Tracklisting:

1) Every Day I Have The Blues
2) Sweet Little Angel
3) It's My Own Fault
4) How Blue Can You Get?
5) Please Love Me
6) You Upset Me Baby
7) Worry, Worry
8) Woke Up This Morning (My  Baby's Gone)
9) You Done Lost Y our Good Thing Now
10) Help The Poor