B.B. King: The Essential Collection [THE ART OF VINYL]

Why you'll love it

The Art of Vinyl presses this collection on virgin vinyl in the EU. It opens with "3 O'Clock Blues," the single that spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's R&B chart and launched his career.

This edition

• Virgin vinyl
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

Before he was the King of the Blues, Riley King was a Memphis radio DJ known as the Beale Street Blues Boy, which in time got shortened to B.B. The songs here come from the decade when that name went national, starting with a cover of Lowell Fulson's "3 O'Clock Blues" cut for RPM in 1951, which gave him his first hit and his first taste of the big venues.

From there the run is remarkable. "You Know I Love You" and "Please Love Me" show off that pleading, gospel-trained voice, "Woke Up This Morning (My Baby She Was Gone)" and "You Upset Me Baby" swing hard, and "Every Day I Have the Blues" became one of his signature tunes. "Sweet Little Angel," "Ten Long Years" and the two-part "Sweet Sixteen" let his stinging, economical guitar do the talking, every note placed just so.

"3 O'Clock Blues" went into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2020. It's a whole decade of the blues on one LP, which works out at very good value per bent note.

Also at Kops: more B.B. King on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On The Art of Vinyl (cat# ART149).