He credited his success with the tune, which originated with the Sparks brothers in the Thirties and achieved its modern form (if not its title) in 1949 with Memphis Slims Nobody Loves Me, to the crisp and relaxed horn charts of arranger Maxwell Davis.īut he got back to what he did best with Sweet Sixteen, a Big Joe Turner number that King stripped of its punchy brass. Subsequent live versions would streamline this King original into a brisk workout, but the studio versions unrushed lope suits Kings awestruck profession of good-natured lust made with offhanded charm.Īnd his casual boast about the object of his desires measurements 36-28-44 attests to the timeless pop-song appeal of big butts.
These 10 songs, all of them hits in their time, are a taste of the breadth of his art.Īlso see Kings five greatest live performances and our definitive 1998 profile, On the Bus With B.B.Īs crudely recorded as it is (Kings singing and guitar are far louder than everything else), Three OClock Blues set the template for his career, with the rich, urbane tone of his voice answered after nearly every phrase by a cruelly prickly comment from his guitar, and an arrangement thats a bit fancier than the backwoods-shack country blues it suggests. Kings voice, and the lacerating solos he played on the guitars he named Lucille, were constants, but everything around them changed.
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