Albert King – A “King of the Blues”

Albert King  “The Velvet Bulldozer”  (April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992)

On April 25th in 1923, alphabetically the first of the “Three Kings” of Blues Albert King was born. Albert had a major impact on the blues and rock music. On December 11th, 2012, it was announced that King would be posthumously inducted into the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I was never a big Abert King fan in the 70s or 80s. It has only been in the last several years that I really became aware of  his impact on blues and rock music. I think that he gets lost in the shadow of B.B. King,  Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. And that is kind’a hard when you’re big as he was! From Wikipedia: Read More

Lunchtime with John Mayall and Albert King

On my way back from renewing my auto registration and taking the car through inspection I put on John Mayall’s classic album Turning Point. I only listened to the first three tracks though and was enjoying them. Those tracks appear on side one of the album, which through the years has been the lesser listened to side. Side 2 contains “Thoughts about Roxanne”, “California” and “Room to Move” three all time favorites. Anyway I was checking out Youtube and this is the first video that caught my eye because it brings together two greats John and Albert King! Here they are performing “Stormy Monday” Read More

Blues and Bluegrass Part 1 – Albert King Born Under a Bad Sign

So tonight my musical mix consisted of some old blues and some new bluegrass. On the way to Target and during my grocery shopping blues was the genre and the album was Albert King’s first album on Stax Born Under a Bad Sign. The album. Now I have never been a big fan of Albert or Freddy King, the other two thirds of the “Kings of Blues” the other third of course being B.B King. So while I don’t have any of Albert’s music in my collection I am well aware of his influence on the generation of blues musician I like, artists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. They were strongly influenced by Albert and many of their guitar solos are close approximations to those found on Born Under a Bad Sign. Read More