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Friday Full-Length: B.B. King, L.A. Midnight

Posted in Bootleg Theater on May 15th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

B.B. King, L.A. Midnight (1972)

B.B. King was pushing 50 by the time he got around to releasing his 12th studio long-player, L.A. Midnight, in 1972, but unlike its offspring in rock and roll, blues more often has a tendency to get better with age. Born in 1925 in Mississippi and aged 89 at the time of his death last night at home in Las Vegas, King‘s legacy and influence are immeasurable. In blues, rock, soul and just about anything else that might on occasion groove, he seems to have had if not a direct impact, then at very least a tertiary hand in the development of the style, and while he didn’t invent electrified blues, he was one of its landmark practitioners and remains a key figure in the development of 20th century American popular culture. There were very few players who had more effect than he did on how electric guitar is commonly played, and most of those were working off his style.

He was, as the chorus behind him put it when I saw him at Drew University in the mid-’90s, the “King of the blues. The one and only. B.B. King.” Almost 20 years later, that chorus, b.b. king l.a. midnightrepeated as it was for 15 minutes over a slick-as-hell jam by King‘s backing band after the man himself left the stage, still rings in my head at the mere mention of the name, like I was brainwashed by that band. By 1972 he’d made most of his principal impact, but L.A. Midnight fascinates all the same not only for his own play, but for the arrangement around him, some touches early on of psychedelic guitar, funkified bass, mentions of Vietnam and all-out jams the likes of which wouldn’t have necessarily had a place on his earliest work, which predates not just such stylistic choices but the album era as a whole. There are touches of classic blues in the been-done-wrong turns of “I Got Some Help I Don’t Need” and “Can’t You Hear Me Talking to You,” but by the early ’70s, King was long past having to prove his bluesy mettle, and the album brims with an established mastery of the form even as it touches — only touches, nothing too alienating — the borderlines of other genres.

There are hundreds of thousands more qualified to speak on King‘s enduring legacy — artists, press, whoever — than I am, so I’m happy to leave them to it, but he’s someone whose hands and whose output ignited the creative passions of others, and his legend will endure. The king of the blues. The one and only.

Had my last interview for that job yesterday. Nailed it. Got it. I start May 26, the day after Memorial Day and am very much looking forward to having a professional life again. It has nothing to do with music, but will require some travel, and I humbly ask that you bear with me for the next few weeks while I establish a work/Obelisk balance. It’s been a while since I last had to commute to an office, let alone do anything once I got there, so yeah. It will be a big adjustment, but you know I’m going to continue to do as much as I can.

In the meantime, this weekend is ClutchMastodon and Graveyard at House of Blues in Boston, so I’ll be there, and hey, since I have to go to New Jersey to pick up my busted-ass car anyway, I might as well stick around to catch Ufomammut and then Conan a couple days later, both at the Saint Vitus BarGozu and Shatner play next weekend in New Hampshire as well. I’m thinking of it as my big unemployment blowout before who the hell knows what happens to my ability to make such ridiculous travel plans on a whim.

Thanks to everyone who’s suffered through my whining this last year-plus. Your support has been invaluable.

Have a great and safe weekend, and please check out the forum and radio stream.

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