Albert king

Born under a bad sign....great album. New to the blues myself. But this was recommended to me. Scot

One of Stevie Ray Vaughan's biggest influences. An excellent and versatile player!

"Born Under A Bad Sign" produced at Stax,  has the Stax house band including the Memphis horns, and is a classic.  It's more of an R&B flavor recording.  Many of the songs having been written by the Stax house writers. 

The one with Stevie Ray Vaugn live is eaxcellent.  If you don't have either artist, this is certainly the way to go.  Here you can definitely see the influence that Albert King had on SRV, and many other guitar players along the way.

Max
Ps.  haha mlauner, you snuck in with your reply while typing mine.

Genius Blues Man. Was left handed and played right hand guitars upside down. 
In addition to Born Under A Bad Sign I would recommend Live Wire/Blues Power and Blues at Sunrise - both are live albums - Live Wire is from Fillmore in the late 60's and At Sunrise was recorded at Montreaux in 1973. Unusually for a Blues Artist he was signed to the Stax label

Just bought a copy  on CD(£2.50) of the live album with SRV.

You need















Born Under a Bad Sign







The Big Blues







Live Wire/Blues Power







Years Gone By







I'll Play the Blues For You







Door to Door with Otis Rush







King of the Blues Guitar on Atlantic- this is a compilation of his Stax singles.







Wednesday Night in San Francisco







Thursday Night in San Francisco.







In Session with Stevie Ray Vaughan







No need to spend too much cash in buying SACD's or the MFSL of Born get the earliest versions available.







If you can't find early versions then be careful with the remaster of Born Under etc as it has crackling in one channel during one of his guitar solos.







Pity you didn't live near me as I have all the above albums.







He has also produced a lot of crap so be careful of anything not on the above list.

"There you go again" (Ronald Reagan) spending everyone's money ewemon.   Nice list!

Which of those from your list would be the bluesiest . . . if such a thing.   The Door to Door with Otis Rush looks interesting.

Thanks,
Max

can always count on a great blues list from Ewen

I would go for Born, Door to Door and Live Wire. Remember he tends to inhabit that area between Blues and Soul so a lot of his albums aren't pure blues. Born Under etc was an album of singles that Stax threw together to make his first album for the label.

       




Hi Max nice to see you back here.



Door to Door is a good album and possibly the nearest he came to releasing a pure Blues album but for me the 6 Otis Rush trax get in the way a little. Some of the King trax were remakes from his time at Cobra if memory serves me well. Not that the Otis Rush trax aren't great on their own especially So Many Roads, wonderful blues trax with a great solo. I wish there had been enough trax in the can for Rush to have released an album on his own but  who knows what lies in Chess's vaults.



I sometimes feel that with Albert he was better live than in the studio as I never feel he produced that really great blues album.



I realise he influenced a lot of people like Stevie Ray, Clapton amongst others but I think it was more on his live shows than his actual albums.

Simply put, He is one of the triumveret of Kings that should be in every blues fans collection.
The others are...

       




Oh you are a tease!!!!!!

'Born Under A Bad Sign' is available in the UK on vinyl at the HMV web site for less than £10 including free delivery.  This is the Sundazed reissue.

Karl