B.B. King Teaches Blues Guitar; & A Rare Video Duet with Ray Brown (+Bonus)
(Paying Subscribers, at the bottom you’ll find your latest gifts—a rare 25-minute B.B. King program from BBC-TV, and a book of very detailed transcriptions of some of his guitar solos.)
Riley “Blues Boy” “B.B.” King (1925-2015) was an expressive and influential guitarist, and a powerful singer as well. Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix were among the thousands who listed King as a primary inspiration. In turn, King always praised Charlie Christian and expressed admiration for jazz musicians, and over the years accomplished jazz artists played in his bands, including Phineas Newborn, George Coleman, Jymie Merritt and others. When King compared himself to jazz musicians, he always commented that he was unable to play fast lines. This man, who was one of the most imitated and influential guitarists in the world, consistently put himself down in a manner that I find completely sincere—it’s not false modesty—and quite charming. Here are three short examples from filmed conversations. He says “I’ve got stupid fingers,” then “I’m not good with my right hand,” and finally he tilts his head to kind of shrug off the interviewer’s comment that his vibrato is “world renowned”:
King was very specific about what he liked in the guitar playing of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, even demonstrating a bit on a BBC-TV program filmed in November 1971:
You can see the full interview here. On the BBC TV broadcast, this interview was interspersed with footage of King making a recording. That complete program is below for Paying Subscribers.
King was also a brilliant person, and he had the rare ability to break down what he did on the guitar into very specific details. He did so on several videos. Here is one from his later years:
The longest such program is this two-hour show from 1991 which is about half performance and half interview (thanks to guitarist Charlie Apicella for finding this online for me).
But did you know that, in collaboration with guitar pedagogue Jerry Snyder, he also wrote a book on playing blues guitar, with audio examples? Snyder told me that, once B.B. agreed to make the book, he recorded cassettes of King talking and playing. But he no longer has the cassettes! The book has been out of print for many years, but with Snyder’s permission, I have scanned the entire book for you here:
And here are all of the audio examples in one longish file:
Now, let’s move on to an example of King’s guitar playing. My friend Brian Priestley, a pianist and a leading jazz historian in the U.K., contributes this research about a B.B. King album that captures some of his best guitar playing, with close-ups on the video version, backed by an all-star jazz big band. Since we’re talking about King’s guitar work, this is an excellent example. (There are nice solos by Plas Johnson on sax as well.) Even more exciting, Brian found that there is a duet between B.B.’s guitar and bassist Ray Brown “buried” in the video version of the concert. King’s set was taken from a 1990 concert, and tour, that co-featured him with Ray Charles. You can see highlights of their Tokyo concert together here.
Here’s Brian’s explanation of what he found:
B.B. King Live At The Apollo
by Brian Priestley
This November 1990 recording actually exists in two related versions. It was not until Marc Myers recently uploaded on his JazzWax Substack the Dolby Sound AC-3/5.1 video edition of the album (also available on YouTube) that I became aware of the differences. Most of them turn out to be less significant than they first appear—for instance, many of the ten tracks are simply not in the same running order. One track even has a different title but, after comparing all the tracks, I found that “Letter Read,” track 2 of the video, is exactly the same performance as “All Over Again,” which is track 6 on the original CD/LP release.
The video, however, lasts nearly 50 minutes, compared to the CD/LP playing time of nearly 45 minutes. There are two reasons for this, the main one being that in the video B.B. thanks the audience after each tune, also giving a namecheck for tenor saxist Plas Johnson, who has solos on some tracks. The applause therefore is often longer on the video and, perhaps in order to omit King’s “thank yous,” timings between tracks on the CD/LP are also shorter. Each release opens with B.B.’s “live” version of the then-recent single “When Love Comes To Town,” which was issued by the Irish rock group U2 “with B.B. King.” So it probably made sense for the CD/LP to follow that with his standards “Sweet Sixteen” and “The Thrill Is Gone.” However, the video seems to follow a more natural build-up for a “live” set, with the opening U2 composition being followed by the less familiar “Letter Read” and Willie Nelson’s “Nightlife,” saving the two old standards for tracks 7 and 8. After that, King leaves the stage, to emerge eventually for a lengthier speech and two encores, Jesse Belvin’s “Guess Who” and B.B.’s then forthcoming single “Peace To The World.”
The video’s running order also makes sense of the one musical difference between the two versions, especially in terms of showmanship. It’s worth noting that the accompaniment throughout is by the so-called “Philip Morris Superband,” sponsored by the giant tobacco company. Though reduced to a backing role in King’s set, this was an all-star line-up fronted by pianist Gene Harris with a rhythm section of ex-Basie drummer Harold Jones and the great bassist Ray Brown.
Especially if one is familiar with CD/LP, it’s a pleasant shock to find that “The Thrill Is Gone” not only lasts nearly 40 seconds longer on the video, but it’s extended by a dialogue between King’s guitar and the bass of Brown, who is shown in close-up at the beginning and end of the number. There’s no spoken namecheck for Ray, because at that point B.B. exits the stage for the set’s “false ending” (where the artist leaves the stage, but plans to return when the audience calls for more). Doubtless this instrumental interlude was seen as an uncommercial distraction when programming the CD/LP. There “The Thrill Is Gone” actually ends with a premature fade – rather unusual for a “live” recording.
Here is the audio version of “The Thrill is Gone” from the 1990 concert at the Apollo:
And here is the extended video version of the same performance, where we can see Ray Brown and enjoy his extended duet with B.B. at the end:
P.S. King’s speech after the false ending includes thanks for the Philip Morris executive who arranged the band’s tour, Andrew Whist. The website sourcewatch.org begins its biography of Whist by describing him as “probably the most effective – and certainly the most devious” of the prominent people engaged in frustrating attempts to legally restrict the global tobacco industry. Their bio makes no mention of his involvement with B.B. King and the Superband.
P.P.S. The person credited with “audio production” on the CD/LP and the video is the distinguished engineer-producer John McClure, who at Columbia Records had worked with classical conductors Bruno Walter, Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, André Previn and others, before turning freelance and assisting Dave Brubeck, Pink Floyd and many more. In 1989 he was hired to engineer Gunther Schuller’s premiere of the Charles Mingus “Epitaph” for live TV transmission and the subsequent album.
[Thank you Brian!]
All the best,
Lewis
P.S. Paying Subscribers, scroll down for the B.B. King video and book!
