Albert King - Blues
6. Oct. 2006

For all of you interested in music (which is the only thing that can get into my head) I'm going to start a music-blog, showing you some videos with great music and try to enlighten you a little bit about the performers as well. If you don't like this then complain, and if I show you something you like that you did not know beforehand then please tell me so I can feel proud of my self.

Who better to start with then master Albert King (1923-1992). You might say he is responsible for bringing the blues to the whiteys although that is a bit of an overstatement. Albert King plays guitar left-handed, without re-stringing the guitar from the right-handed setup; this "upside-down" playing accounts for his difference in tone, since he pulls down on the same strings that most players push up on when bending the blues notes.

King (born Albert Nelson) taught himself how to play guitar when he was a child, building his own instrument out of a cigar box. At first, he played with gospel groups but after hearing Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson and several other blues musicians, he solely played the blues.

It took King some time to make a name for him self and finally in 1953, at the age of 30, he cut his first recording session. He did not catch a break through the 50's but in the 1959 he got his first R&B Chart climber, "Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong" which reached 14th place on the chart. King's real break came how ever in 1967 when out came "Born Under a Bad Sign, a collection of his singles for the label Stax, which he singed with in 1962. This album opened up to he the rock&roll market and Albert King became a legend.

In the mid-'80s, Albert King announced his retirement, but soon started touring again, although he never recorded new material again. He continued to perform until his sudden death in 1992, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on December 21, two days after his last performance.

(Note, if a video is pausing on it's own, put it on pause the next time it starts and let it load for a little time)

Born Under a Bad Sign, One of Albert Kings most widely recognized song. This album broadened the market for blues-music to the white audience. (Live in Sweden 1980)


Bluespower (live at Fillmore East 1970)


The Sky is Crying, another of King's classics (live in Japan 1989)