Album Reviews

It's easy to imagine a generation of young guitar students wearing out the grooves of this set of  "urban instrumental surf music."

Yes, it's considered "blues," but by 1965 when this was issued, rock and surf had made their way into King's vocabulary.

There are no "tunes" to speak of, just the usual 12 bar blues chord turnarounds played by a drum/keyboard/bass rhythm section and some steam train sax, over which King riffs around the root.

It's easy to imagine a generation of young guitar students wearing out the grooves of this set of  "urban instrumental surf music."

Yes, it's considered "blues," but by 1965 when this was issued, rock and surf had made their way into King's vocabulary.

There are no "tunes" to speak of, just the usual 12 bar blues chord turnarounds played by a drum/keyboard/bass rhythm section and some steam train sax, over which King riffs around the root.

What a rich yet edgy tone he produced from his hollow bodied Gibson! The best way to enjoy this is to consider the well worn form and imagine you were responsible for making stuff up around the chords. Compare what you get with what Freddy pulled from his fingers!

Another interesting way is to listen for stuff later rock and blues musicians copped. Even though King was born in Texas, his family moved to Chicago when he was young, yet Stevie Ray Vaughan clearly found something to like in the fellow Texan's approach..

The recording quality is hi-fi/lo-fi, meaning it sounds like a simple, tubey, two-channel Ampex recording chain. Sundazed went with the less echoey, more coherent mono mix, though the "stereo" original has its pleasures. It puts King on his own in the right speaker with everything else on the left, made to cohere with added echo—very much like early Beatles albums.

Clearly the goal was to be able to control the King to rhythm section balance in the mix to mono.

For guitar aficionados for sure. Others not so much. King was also a great singer so perhaps one of those albums would have greater universal appeal.