Friday Listening: In the Presence of a King

A late-career live album captures the essence of Freddie King

How long has it been since you’ve heard a blues guitarist land on — and own — a memorable single note?

How long since you’ve heard Freddie King, arguably the most overlooked of the three Kings of the blues (along with B.B. King, Albert King), do it?

Fix that immediately with “Look on Yonder Wall” from this blazing live album. It’s been reissued several times, yet somehow in digital form lacks all basic information — including recording date. (A reviewer on Amazon guesses 1974, two years before the Texas bluesman died from road wear at age 42, and that seems entirely possible. Another reviewer on AllMusic complains that the recordings are “faded in and out, mostly very poor audio quality” — that describes several live King documents but not this one.)

“Yonder Wall” sits in a brisk Memphis-revue style pulse. It’s on cruise control from the start; the first five minutes contain stray sparks of King guitar fury, mostly in the spaces between vocal phrases. Five minutes and six seconds in, King gets to work. He starts by spearing some typical two-note declarations and swerving pitchbends, making sure that his listeners can feel the blues. Near the end of his second chorus he lands on a note and lets it ring. And ring. And ring some more. For an entire chorus. And then another, and on the second, he deftly works with feedback from the amp in ways that add to the intensity.

The band shadows King’s moves and adjusts levels as needed; they’re following well-established routes of blues performance while keeping his lane wide open. When King finally breaks away from the sustain, the musicians are ready with a newly aggravated backbeat and pealing organ chords that send things into a higher gear, inspiring an almost unhinged shouted vocal coda from King.

Lots of blues stars had devices like this at the ready, and worked them into highly choreographed solos that, let’s be honest, might not have varied much from night to night. King almost always walked on stage ready to stir up blues feeling in ways he hadn’t done before. While he understood the importance of showmanship, King resisted cliche in all forms. When he repeated a phrase for emphasis, or massaged a single note into an epic statement, the expression was all his own, rousing and true.

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