B.B. King: Live at the Regal [ACE]

Why you'll love it

This EU-pressed edition comes from the UK reissue label Ace and keeps the ten songs in their original order across two sides. Colin Larkin ranked it No. 6 among his Top 50 blues albums of all time, and it appears in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

This edition

• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

A studio record tells you how a blues singer sounds. Live at the Regal tells you what he does to a room. Taped at Chicago's Regal Theater on November 21, 1964, it catches King after years of constant touring, in front of a crowd that shrieks back at every bent note.

Leo Lauchie on bass and Duke Jethro on piano hold down the bottom end. The horns (Johnny Board and Bobby Forte on tenor, Kenny Sands on trumpet) punch in and out around him while Sonny Freeman keeps the beat moving. The set runs from Memphis Slim's "Every Day I Have The Blues" through John Lee Hooker's "It's My Own Fault" and King's own "Please Love Me" and "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now" to Charlie Singleton's "Help The Poor," and every one of them is sung like he means it. Johnny Pate produced.

Robert Christgau listed it in his Basic Record Library of 1950s and 1960s recordings, and guitarists have been wearing out copies ever since. By side two you'll probably be shrieking along from the sofa, which is fine; that's what the sofa is for.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Ace (cat# CH 86), a reissue of the 1965 live album.