Freddy King: Texas Oil: Federal Recordings 1960-1962 [WAX TIME]

Why you'll love it

This limited 180g compilation gathers 19 of the Federal sides that made Freddy King one of the Three Kings of the Blues Guitar. "Hide Away" reached No. 5 on the R&B chart and No. 29 on the pop chart in 1961, and Rolling Stone ranked King 19th among its 250 Greatest Guitarists in 2023.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Limited edition

About the album

Chess Records turned him down more than once, which in hindsight was Cincinnati's gain. Fred King, a Texas boy raised on the South Side of Chicago, met pianist and A&R man Sonny Thompson in 1959, and King Records owner Syd Nathan signed him to the Federal subsidiary the following year.

His first session at the King Studios in August 1960 produced "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and the instrumental "Hide Away," named after Mel's Hide Away Lounge on Chicago's West Side and stitched together from bits of Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy McCracklin and "Peter Gunn." It became a blues standard. Federal kept him cutting instrumentals, so this set is loaded with them: "San-Ho-Zay," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "The Stumble" and the title tune "Texas Oil," alongside vocal sides like "I'm Torn Down" and "Lonesome Whistle Blues."

Those records sent a generation of British and American guitarists back to the woodshed, and ZZ Top inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Three Kings of the Blues Guitar, none of them related, which must have made the family reunions very quiet indeed.

Also at Kops: more Freddy King on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Wax Time (cat# 772309), the 2022 compilation.