Vintage Guitar - February 2017 - Open - 105
CHECK THIS ACTION Author Dan Forte with B.B. REGAL INDEED: REFLECTIONS ON B.B. KING By Dan Forte I Forte/King: Mark Mander. t has been almost a year and a half since B.B. King passed away. He graced Vintage Guitar's August '15 cover, but I didn't chime in. I needed more time to reflect on the man as much as his music, and to collect my thoughts. My brothers and I began vacuuming up blues records in early '67, after the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's first two albums entered the Forte household the preceding Christmas. Pete Welding's liner notes for the band's self-titled debut were like a textbook. We headed straight for Berkeley, scouring shops for LPs by everyone mentioned: Muddy Waters, Jimmy Cotton, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells - which, of course, led us to other blues artists. We ate it up - all of it. Not long after, ironically in a mall record store in our Oakland suburb of Hayward, the store owner directed me toward the B.B. King rack. I'd heard the name, mainly on posters for Fillmore concerts I'd been too young to go to and soon after in the pages of a new magazine called Guitar Player. So I picked up Live At The Regal. I have to admit, I wasn't ready for it. The slick, horn-driven band, the call and response with the all-black audience, the blistering tempo of the opener, "Every Day I Have The Blues" - it reminded me more of James Brown's Live At The Apollo than the Chicago blues I'd been listening to. But I kept listening, and went back a few weeks later to see what other B.B. albums were in that rack; I picked up The Jungle. Needless to say, I was soon hooked. I honestly have no idea how many B.B. LPs and CDs I own today. I saw him perform a couple dozen times - first at 1967's Monterey Jazz Festival (jamming with T-Bone Walker), but soon at Fillmore West (including the famous battle with Albert King I recounted in my GP tribute to Albert), nightclubs, concert halls, the prim Paul Masson Mountain Winery, his traveling B.B. King Blues Festival, and Eric Clapton's first Crossroads Guitar Festival, in Dallas in '04. When his Blues Festival hit Austin in 2001, after a satisfying but long day that included Tommy Castro and John Hiatt, B.B. was preceded by a Buddy Guy set that was, frankly, more jive than substance. My then-wife wanted to head back to the car, but I pleaded, "Be patient. You've never February 2017 seen B.B. King. I guarantee you'll be glad you stayed." She did, and she was. The King charmed her, as much with his personality as with his music. When I joined the staff of Guitar Player at age 22, getting press passes for B.B. shows was no problem, so I went to see him virtually every time he was in town. In fact, it amazed me that the other editors rarely went; I felt I was representing the mag, and it was a sign of respect. The procedure was always the same. After the show, his valet "Rebop" would man the dressing room door. "B.B.'s changing. You can see him in a few minutes," he'd tell fans. I'd wait in the back, watching him sign autographs for every single person who wanted one, without fail, always a gentleman. Then I'd reintroduce myself, shake hands, and thank him for a great show. The photo here is from the mid '80s; I can tell by the jacket I'm wearing and by B.B.'s girth. As for his "essential" recordings, absolutely Regal, but, since his early Modern albums have been retitled and jumbled up, I highly recommend the Enlightenment collection, Complete Recordings, 1949-1962. If six CDs clocking in at eight hours seems excessive, it's one-stop shopping for the cost of a single CD at the usual online outlets! Pay particular attention to the version of "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now" with the unaccompanied intro; also "Just Like A Woman" (retitled "Rockin' Twist") reveals T-Bone's influence. Often overlooked is Blues Is King, in front of a smaller club audience, but with perhaps his more searing tone on any album. Completely Well, with "Thrill Is Gone," still floors me, as do the big-band Blues On Top Of Blues and Indianola Mississippi Seeds. Also get Blues All Around Me, his excellent autobiography, co-written by David Ritz, and The Life Of Riley biographical DVD. If this sounds like a heap of stuff, it is. It should be. B.B. King was a humble, gracious man, but no less a giant - not just of blues, not just of guitar playing, but of American culture. He should have his own wing in the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. College courses should be devoted to his music and the life of this sharecropper turned icon. In the words of "Worry, Worry" from Live At The Regal, "Someday, baby." 105 VINTAGE GUITAR © 2016 Dan Forte; all rights reserved.
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