HEAR HERE:
PLAYLIST:
“I’m A Guitar King” – Dion
“Give Me Back My Wig” – Hound Dog Taylor And The Houserockers
“Short Haired Woman” – Lightnin’ Hopkins
“Hair Dressin’ Women” – Big Maybelle
“I Love My Guitar” – Steve James & Del Rey
“Just My Guitar And Me” – Bernard Allison
“Lucille” – B.B. King
“How Blue Can You Get” – B.B. King
“Nobody Loves Me But My Mother” – B.B. King
“Don’t Answer The Door” – B.B. King
“Born To Play Guitar” – Buddy Guy
“The Real Guitar Rag” – Steve James & Del Rey
Way back, in the 2nd edition of Nothin’ But The Blues, I think it was, I featured an introduction to the first of the ‘Three Kings’ of Blues Guitar: Freddie King: The Texas Cannonball. I’ve always been fond of Freddie’s recordings – especially his Live material. In my formative years, as a Cultural Detective initiate, I considered myself enormously fortunate to have witnessed Freddie King in concert. It was on the 6th of March in 1975. An occasion I’ll never forget.
In this week’s edition of Nothin’ But The Blues, we’ll be getting acquainted with another of the ‘Three Kings of Blues Guitar’: B.B. King. Of the Three Kings, he was the longest living – and most commercially successful. For good reason, he was among the most loved and respected Blues guitarists, ever. You’ll also discover (if you don’t know already), how B.B. King’s guitar came to be famously known, by the name, ‘Lucille’. (My apologies at this point, to those many long-suffering fans of Albert King, the as yet to be featured third ‘King’ in the great triumvirate. As the only outstanding member of the ‘Three Kings’, you have my pledge, that Albert’s distinctive style of Blues Power will have ample opportunity to shine in a future edition of the show.)
With B.B. King being regarded as one of the greatest of all Blues guitarists, it seemed naturally appropriate to skew the direction of the remainder of this show almost entirely in favour of the guitar.
Of particular note, are a couple of players from the United States whose work you may not yet be familiar with. But you should be. They are the Texan guitarist, Steve James and his (occasional) collaborator, from Seattle, the multi-instrumentalist, Del Rey.
Both perform – and record – as solo musicians but whenever they team up, it really is something special. In this week’s show, you’ll hear two songs from their independently released album from 2005 titled, ‘Tonight’. Both songs are about guitars. One of them, a virtual short history lesson of Blues in the early 20th century, in which the pair pay homage to – whilst trading licks – in the styles of various Blues guitar trailblazers including, Robert Johnson, Memphis Minnie, Frank Stokes, Big Bill Broonzy, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Tampa Red.
Not only do we have Blues Guitar Kings and Kings of Blues Guitar – we’ll also drop into the hair salon so Alexa can fix her weave, or some such. So, I guess there’ll be some hairdressin’ Blues as well.
Yeah, I know… How can we possibly fit all those guitars, the Gist Spiegeltent – and enough cases of Gossamer hair spray to elegantly coiffé Alexa’s wig – into one tiny hour of outrageously satisfying Blues radio?
Turn up your amplifier loud enough for the neighbours to hear and hit the play button above and all those questions will be answered.
As always, thanks for listening,
Gideon Rhyme – Cultural Detective
The show’s eighth episode premiered on the gist.net.au at midday (CST) on Saturday the 15th April 2017, receiving an ‘encore’ airing at 7pm (CST) on Wednesday 19th April 2017.
Trés Le Parque 