B.B. King
"Live at the Regal"
B.B. King once told Dr Gone that he didn't understand why so many people think this is the greatest blues album ever. He'd
made other albums he himself thought were better.
But for Dr Gone, and lots of other blues fans, "Live at the Regal" is the proverbial desert island album: If stuck on a desert island
with only a CD player, lots of batteries and just one CD, "Live at the Regal" would be the album to have.
Blues music is at its best when its performers really connect with the audience, and nobody is better at that than B.B. King.
On this album, fans can feel the heat, feel the love from that audience in Chicago in 1964 when King breathed gritty life into
"Every Day I have the Blues," "Sweet Little Angel," "It's My Own Fault," "How Blue Can You Get?" "Please Love Me,"
"You Upset Me Baby," "Worry, Worry," "Woke Up This Mornin'," "You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now" and "Help the Poor."
That's a great range of styles, by the way, and delivered with peerless excellence by King's well-rehearsed band.
A note about that band: Duke Jethro was on keys for "Live at the Regal." Usually Duke Jethro played Hammond B3 organ with King, but on that
night there was a technical problem with the organ, so Duke Jethro played piano instead -- and the tinkling riffs
he played that night are masterful and are a big part of this great album's overall charm.
Duke Jethro later dropped out of music for about 20 years, working as an engineer in Silicon Valley. One night the great
Chris Cain ran into him at a blues club, an eventually talked him into getting back into music. And he did, at least for a while.
