|
|
B.B. King
Friday · Music Hall
There’s a truly marvelous moment in the 1989 U2 concert film Rattle and Hum when guest artist B.B. King asks The Edge if he’ll be able to cover the chords when he and the band team up for the song “When Love Comes to Town.” Sheepishly, King confesses to the Edge, “I don’t play no chords,” forcing the U2 guitarist to assure one of the greatest Blues talents on the face of the planet that he shouldn’t worry about the chords.
Such is the grace, humility and essence of B.B. King.
To place the 82-year-old legend’s astonishing timeline in perspective, his first recordings in the late 1940s were released on 78s and he was a firmly established Blues sensation for 10 years when Eric Clapton — his eventual duet partner on 2000’s double platinum Riding With the King — was just learning the licks that would ultimately have Londoners scrawling graffiti about his God-ness.
Born Riley B. King in 1925, he learned guitar as a teenager from recordings of T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian and busked in Indianola, Miss., before moving to Memphis. King was a DJ on a Memphis radio station where he earned the nickname Beale Street Blues Boy, which was shortened to Blues Boy and then to B.B. In 1951, at the age of 26, King had his first No. 1 record, “Three O’clock Blues,” which set the tone for the rest of the decade, as the guitarist enjoyed steady record and ticket sales.
When the Blues caught on with white audiences in the ’60s, King became a staple of FM radio and a major concert draw, eventually scoring his only Top 20 Pop hit, 1970’s “The Thrill is Gone,” a song that became as much a King signature as his well-traveled Gibson guitar, Lucille.
King’s across-the-board popularity has increased exponentially over the subsequent three-and-a-half decades, earning him every conceivable accolade, from multiple Grammy awards to Blues Foundation, Songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions to Kennedy Center honors. His voice, his melodic staccato technique, his guitar — lovely as a woman and named thusly — and his nearly six-decade career have all combined to make B.B. King one of the most beloved and respected musical entertainers in the world and a singular thrill that will never be gone. (Brian Baker)
Cowboy Junkies
Tuesday · 20th Century Theater
Talk about truth in advertising: Cowboy Junkies have lived up to their name from the start, espousing a western-tinged Country/Blues sound spiked with the somnambulant hush of a Velvet Underground’s heroin nod.
At the height of Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign in the ’80s, anything with “junkies” in the title was a bold gambit, and the Timmins siblings — guitarist Michael, vocalist Margo and drummer Peter — and their bassist Alan Anton, all Montreal natives, bet on controversy and won, securing a contract with RCA after their self-released debut album, Whites Off Earth Now! in 1986. The Junkies’ sophomore album, The Trinity Sessions, broke them wide in 1988 after Lou Reed endorsed their ethereal cover of his VU classic “Sweet Jane” and enraptured American audiences packed their next few south-of-the-northern-border tours.
Michael Timmins began writing more with 1990’s The Caution Horses, which, like The Trinity Sessions, was recorded live without overdubs. 1992’s Black-Eyed Man boasted yet another well known peer fan for the Junkies, as renowned Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt supplied two songs for the album; Michael Timmins returned the favor and dedicated “Crescent Moon” from 1993’s Pale Sun, Crescent Moon to Van Zandt. In 1996, the band shifted from RCA to Geffen for Lay It Down, their first album with an outside producer, and they scored a hit with “A Common Disaster,” but the subsequent deaths of Van Zandt and the Timmins’ grandfather resulted in the reflective and downcast Miles From Our Home.
In 1999, the Junkies resurrected their Latent label and released their own albums again, working a distribution deal with Rounder for 2001’s excellent Open. After the live Open Road CD/DVD and several recent studio albums including their latest, this year’s At the End of Paths Taken, the Junkies most recent projects are interesting looks back at their two-decade career.
Trinity Revisited finds the Junkies returning to the church where they recorded their landmark ’88 album to rerecord the classic album with guests Ryan Adams, Vic Chesnutt and Natalie Merchant. The Junkies have also compiled a book of their 20-year history, appropriately titled XX, and finally they’ve reissued a remastered, multi-format CD of Whites Off Earth Now!
From baroque chamber Pop to ephemeral Country/Folk to whispered Blues to muscular Rock, Cowboy Junkies have explored their various sonic roles with an edgy passion and the quiet determination to please themselves and their rabidly loyal fans. (BB)
This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2007.