Format Details: Longbox_Box Set
Release Date: 24 June 2002
Label: Ace Records
Packaging Type: Box Set
No of Units: 4
Barcode: 029667000826
Description
B.B. King is an international icon, the founding father of the blues and rock guitar styles. His landmark recordings of the 1950s and 1960s for RPM, Kent and Crown were very influential at the time, and still are. We proudly present 106 tracks from that extraordinary body of work by John Broven Ace Records is extremely honoured to be able to present THE VINTAGE YEARS, a momentous 4-CD box set of B.B. King's landmark recordings for the Modern Records group on the RPM, Crown and Kent labels in the 1950s and 1960s. B.B. is a true international icon, unquestionably the founding father of the blues and rock guitar styles. Here, his budding genius is revealed for all to see. Looking back as the leader of this project, I became drawn more and more to B.B.'s music even though I had been listening to him forever. Most notably I was struck by the purity of his vocals (which have tended to be overshadowed by his peerless guitar work), by his knowledge and adaptation of seemingly the entire history of black recorded music, by his growing musical sophistication, and by those superb Maxwell Davis arrangements that have truly matured with age. At the end of it all, my admiration for this body of B.B.'s work is higher than ever. The individual CDs here can be summarised as follows: CD1: The Great B.B. contains many of the big hits readily associated with B.B. that he still plays to this day. CD2: Memphis Blues'n'Boogie is a look at the rare recordings of the early 1950s engineered by Sam Phillips in Memphis, followed by those directed by Bill Harvey in Houston. Session-by-session, you can see B.B. finding his own style. CD3: Take A Swing With Me covers the mid-late 1950s when B.B. was touring constantly, and Maxwell Davis became the music director. By this time, the blues market had started to dip, leading B.B. to record in a variety of styles from R&B, rock'n'roll, pop and doo wop to jazz and gospel. CD4: King Of The Blues is where B.B. establishes his blues mastery as his association with Modern Records draws to an end. The songs selected form a musical collage of the most creative stage of B.B.'s career, with the accent on listening pleasure. For the record, the 106 tracks include four previously unissued cuts and 25 stereo recordings with almost one-third of the content new to Ace CD. There are no less than 27 chart recordings, including four #1 R&B hits, 17 Top 10 R&B hits, and four Top 100 hits. In its making, the The Vintage Years was not a rush job. For example, Managing Director Roger Armstrong spent many months analysing the Ace archive of over 2,000 B.B. King tapes to select the best (and correct) masters. Eventually Duncan Cowell at Sound Mastering Ltd did the crucial post-production work. The sound is sparkling. Never before has the original studio 'room' ambience of classic numbers such as 3 O'Clock Blues and Please Love Me been heard with such clarity and zest. An impressive 74-page book, lavishly printed in full colour, accomp
Tracklisting
Young Jessie
Wynonie Harris
Willie Hightower
Willie Headen
Wayne Cochran
Wanda Jackson
Wanda Jackson
Walter Horton
B.B. King
B.B. King
B.B. King
B.B. King
B.B. King
B.B. King
B.B. King
