The King of the Blues

There is only one question that comes to my mind when I think about B.B. King: does the 82-year-old legend still have "it" in him, or has he lost the spark that had inspired so many?

He definitely still has "it," and I personally believe he always will. Once "it" has been obtained, "it" stays with you forever, in glory and rapture, amen and goodnight.

A lot of people misjudge the difference between good guitar players and legendary guitar players. What makes the legendary player a legend isn't his technique, but how he portrays the soul and story of his song. King has not been known for his speedy, in-your-face guitar skills, but for his slow, precise style of playing. Most blues music has a very raw sound to it. King manages to eliminate this quality from his playing and polish his style into something guitar players try to emulate, but can never quite imitate.

The blues have always been music about, well, feeling blue. There is a somber element that runs through the genre that King easily portrays in his latest CD, "One Kind Favor." The opening track sets the tone with lyrical imagery of death and loneliness, epitomized when he asks someone to take care of his remains and grave after his death. His track list continues along that theme with songs such as "My Love Is Down," which tells of relationship issues and how "not listening" can lead to the kind of loneliness that only the blues can express.

"Sitting On Top of The World" is an uncharacteristically upbeat track lyrically. It is about a man who doesn't have a care in the world; a philosophy many wish they could embody but is hard to obtain because of today's social and cultural constructs. Even though everything is going wrong for this man, he is flying high. The implication is that someone who decides to be a bigger person and put himself on a higher, more carefree plane than all the troubles of the world is a pleasant dream of escapism that King holds and retains in the affecting strums of his guitar.

Most blues enthusiasts will hear some of these tracks and think, "These aren't his songs!" In that respect, they would be absolutely right. King and his producer T. Bone Burnett collaborated on options for his CD. They decided that the best course of action would be to retain that soulful, 'blues-y' feel King epitomized and for which he will be remembered. King decided to make a CD with all his favorite blues artists, including bands such as the Mississippi Sheiks, who wrote "Sitting On Top Of the World." Other covers included are from more popular blues artists like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker, both of whom have played with King on numerous occasions.

The CD was an overall success, but was marred considerably by the lack of original material from King. There is something to be said about a good blues album, and this album was clever and conventional.

By Oliver Kleinenberg at thebatt.com

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