1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 59. BB King – Live at The Regal (1965)

Pretty much straightforward blues from a master of the craft. I do wonder about including live albums, it sometimes feels like it’s a way of sneaking in a Greatest Hits album in a way acceptable to music snobs, and I think I’ve expressed my thoughts before about how they capture a particular time and place that can sometimes be a fascinating snapshot, sometimes loses something in translation to recording; also how some performers are entirely different live compared to a recording studio with a lot of post-production.  

And actually, if any genre is better with some immediacy, it’s blues. It’s quite restrictive about chord changes, and the blues scale(s) tend to be pretty truncated (it’s been a while since I noodled around with them, but it’s an easy set of rules to pick up). Hence once you’ve heard a few blues songs, you know pretty much where they’re going to go and what’s left is all in the stylings. There’s no denying King has a good voice for the blues, and is an accomplished blues guitarist, but coming in the middle of a crop of albums that are developing new musical styles, I find it a little hard to get excited about it. 

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