B.B. King

B.B. King – Reflections (2003/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:33 minutes | 2,02 GB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen*

B.B. King unleashes his inner crooner on this collection of 13 of his sentimental favorites. With a five-piece studio band rather than his usual orchestra, the arrangements stay spare throughout, allowing King to exercise his classic vocal chops. His most heartfelt selection may be “A Mother’s Love”, a performance that seems to draw on the heartache he still carries from the loss of his own mother when he was a child, nearly 70 years ago.
(more…)

B.B. King – More B.B. King (1961/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 27:35 minutes | 208 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music Manager

This essential LP edition includes King’s superlative album, “More B.B. King”, originally issued in late 1961, and long unavailable on vinyl. It marked his seventh budget-priced LP on the Bihari brothers’ Crown label (a subsidiary of Modern Records). The majority of the tracks were recorded just before B.B. King changed record labels from Kent to ABC Paramount in 1962. The album is an entertaining mix of booting R&B, blues ballads and instrumentals, drawn primarily from the Kent singles of the period. Stylistically, the compositions embrace mature, string-laden ballads alongside straight R&B shuffles and urban blues. These are quality recordings orchestrated by the great Maxwell Davis.
(more…)

B.B. King – Lucille (1968/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:20 minutes | 795 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen*

Lucille is the fifteenth album by blues artist B. B. King. It is named for his famous succession of Gibson guitars, currently the Signature ES-355.

“B.B.’s guitar is featured extensively on the ten-minute title track, an easy, unforced medium-tempo instrumental excursion over which King provides a running account of his love for, and indebtedness to ‘Lucille’ … a must for B.B. freaks.” – Rolling Stone
(more…)

B.B. King – Live In Cook County Jail (1971/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:48 minutes | 875 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen*

One of the best live blues albums of all time from the spokesman of the Blues. The record spent three weeks at the top of the Souls Albums chart and is listed in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
(more…)

B.B. King – Live At The Regal (1965/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:04 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Geffen*

Live at the Regal is a live recording of legendary blues guitarist and vocalist B.B. King. The album was recorded November 21, 1964 and is considered one of the greatest blues albums ever recorded; reaching #141 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Live at the Regal was selected by the Library of Congress in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry.
(more…)

B.B. King – King of the Blues (1960/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 29:55 minutes | 324 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music Manager

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 — May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as “the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century”.
(more…)

B.B. King – Indianola Mississippi Seeds (1970/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:28 minutes | 841 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

B.B. King is not only a timeless singer and guitarist, he’s also a natural-born entertainer, and on Live at the Regal the listener is treated to an exhibition of all three of his talents. Over percolating horn hits and rolling shuffles, King treats an enthusiastic audience (at some points, they shriek after he delivers each line) to a collection of some of his greatest hits. The backing band is razor-sharp, picking up the leader’s cues with almost telepathic accuracy. King’s voice is rarely in this fine of form, shifting effortlessly between his falsetto and his regular range, hitting the microphone hard for gritty emphasis and backing off in moments of almost intimate tenderness. Nowhere is this more evident than at the climax of “How Blue Can You Get,” where the Chicago venue threatens to explode at King’s prompting. Of course, the master’s guitar is all over this record, and his playing here is among the best in his long career. Displaying a jazz sensibility, King’s lines are sophisticated without losing their grit. More than anything else, Live at the Regal is a textbook example of how to set up a live performance. Talking to the crowd, setting up the tunes with a vignette, King is the consummate entertainer. Live at the Regal is an absolutely necessary acquisition for fans of B.B. King or blues music in general. A high point, perhaps even the high point, for uptown blues. – Daniel Gioffre
(more…)

B.B. King – B.B. King In London (1971/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 33:49 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

B.B. King in London is the nineteenth studio album by B.B. King recorded in London in 1971. He is accompanied by US session musicians and various British R&B musicians, including Alexis Korner and Rick Wright ( not the same from Pink Floyd), as well as members of Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie, Greg Ridley, Steve Marriott and Jerry Shirley.

The album was released in the United Kingdom on November 19, 1971 in order to coincide with the first date of King’s tour of the country.

Wright and his female companion Fritz started a short-lived blues-based band Sunrise which came to an end after Wright’s untimely death in a car accident in 1974. Sunrise also included session blues guitarist Paul Asbell. John Lennon had announced that he would perform on some of the tracks, but ended up having no involvement with the album.
(more…)

B.B. King – Friends (1974/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 28:58 minutes | 609 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

ReMaster from 1974 album featuring some of the classic Philadelphia International musicians such as Norman Harris, Vince Montana, The Memphis Horns & The Philadelphia Strings. Some great proto-Disco / Funk cuts including the classic title track.
(more…)

B.B. King – Completely Well (1969/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:07 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

Completely Well was B.B. King’s breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, “The Thrill Is Gone,” and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King’s pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King’s old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he’s having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it’s a nice stop along the way before you finish it.
(more…)

B.B. King – Blues On Top Of Blues (1968/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 31:58 minutes | 657 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

This release presents a newly remastered reissue of one of the lesser-known albums by the King of the Blues: Blues on Top of Blues. This masterpiece doesn’t contain better known stuff, but is nevertheless a solid late ‘60s set. Featuring brassy arrangements by Johnny Pate (who also worked with many prominent Chicago soul acts during the ‘60s, such as Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Bland), it presents King’s sound at its best. Among the gems here are “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss”, “Heartbreaker”, and “Raining in My Heart”.
(more…)

B.B. King – Blues Is King (1967/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:35 minutes | 430 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen Records

By 1967, King had refined his singing and guitar style (which were always intertwined) to a fine point. What was just beginning to emerge during this period was King the showman, the singer with a story to tell his audience; sometimes a sad story, sometimes an angry one, occasionally even a downright mean one. Nowhere was this more apparent than in live performance. Here he’s captured in concert in Chicago, home of the blues and the ideal place to testify to the congregation. From “Tired of Your Jive” to “I Know What You’re Puttin’ Down” to the unequivocal “Baby Get Lost,” B.B. lets his audience in on the ups and downs of romance in no uncertain terms, both through his impassioned vocals and characteristically stinging guitar. The effect is both cathartic and awe-inspiring.
(more…)

B.B. King – Three O’Clock Blues (1963/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 54:23 minutes | 553 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EVERECORDS

B. B. King (B. B. King; real name Riley B. King, English Riley B. King; born September 16, 1925 near the city of Itta Bena, Mississippi, USA — May 14, 2015) is an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter.

According to one critic, “B.B. King presented us with a refined guitar solo style based on smooth bending and brilliant vibrato, which influenced almost every follower of electric guitar blues.” One of his most famous compositions is “The Thrill Is Gone” (1969).

The noisy approval of critics and wide fame brought him fame as the most respected, successful, recognizable bluesman not only in the USA, but also around the world. According to the results of a 2011 Rolling Stone magazine poll, B.B. King is in 6th place in the list of the “100 best guitarists of all time”.

(more…)