Customer Reviews

The Best of B.B. King: Christmas Collection: 20th Century Masters

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my favorite Christmas CD, hands down. I'm a little biased, as I've been a BB King fan for years, but I was blown away by the production quality of this album. I expected something more along the lines of Andy Williams, but this is one hot blues CD. I would rate this right up there with Blues on the Bayou, which in my opinion is BB's all-time best (I prefer his later albums).

I don't know why they reissued this CD under the 20th Century Masters label, only two years after the first CD was released. It appears to be the same album, except that they apparently substituted Merry Christmas Baby for What a Wonderful World. But if you love the blues, then you will want this in your Christmas CD collection. My favorite tune turned out to be Merry Christmas Baby, where BB demonstrates that he's still got the pipes, and Lucille can still sing, too.

I was looking forward to this cd, but was disappointed. The rhythm section is deadly in a metronomic way. Almost every song begins and sounds the same. I think his style of playing does not lend itself to Christmas music, especially with such a lame, overproduced back-up.

Tired of the Christmas classics.....get a blues version. Good sonics of many BB classics and his Christmas themed cuts. This DVD comes more than once a year.

From the first note you can tell this is not your typical christmas cd. The sound is awesome and it's BB King all the way. If you love BB King you will love this cd. It's christmas and it's blues by the "King of the Blues" himself.

This is a super album. We enjoyed every song on the album. It would be great to give as gift. I rate the album a five.

In classic B.B. King style this is soulful and a pleasure to listen to. A welcome relief from the same old songs you hear on the radio around Christmas. Treat yourself and anyone else you know while you're at it :)

I pick this up the day before Christmas because I had gotten sick of "standard" Christmas music. I really enjoyed BB (as I usually do) and I liked the selections. My wife is not a big blues fan but even she remarked about how much she enjoy this set. This was definitely worth buying!

This CD has a very warm sound throughout. You can't go wrong riding with The King this holiday season.

Well produced, with BB sounding like he is enjoying himself. "Back Door Santa" similar to Johnny Winter's "Back Door Friend" in its meaning.

B. B. King's The Christmas Collection is a MIXED BAG that ultimately becomes a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT. There are three positive characteristics about this cd. First, The Christmas Collection is filled with all classic BLUES music! This is a positive trait because I am a big fan of the BLUES; perhaps you are too. The only other Christmas cd that I own that even approaches the classic blues filled character of The Christmas Collection is Roomful of Christmas, by Roomful of Blues, and Roomful of Christmas is filled with quite different jazz blues music. Second, the instrumentation on The Christmas Collection is simply outstanding! B. B. King must have assembled some of the very best BLUES' musicians to back him on this cd. The final positive quality of this cd is that the sound quality is excellent. The clear separation among the various instruments and B. B. King's voice allow you to clearly distinguish each and every part. However, we now come to the one very important negative quality of The Christmas Collection that leads me to dislike and sell this cd. On the liner notes for The Christmas Collection, B. B. King states that he has wanted to record a collection of Christmas songs for a long time. Unfortunately, B. B. King waited far too long to record the music found on this cd. B. B. King's voice has changed in the last thirty to forty years; his voice has become increasingly more rough, more flat, and less melodic. I strongly admire B. B. King for continuing to perform and record BLUES music long after the age when many of his peers had retired. However, as B. B. King grew much older, his voice changed, becoming increasingly more rough, more flat, and less melodic, and his changed voice became a large disappointment to me. I can't help but think about how much better The Christmas Collection would have sounded if a much younger B. B. King, or better yet, if either Freddie King when he was young or Susan Tedeschi, had sang the vocals on this cd. (Freddie King never recorded a Christmas album. However, I believe that Freddie King, not B. B. King, is the true King of the Blues because Freddie had an outstanding voice and was an outstanding guitar player. B. B. King in his prime only had a good voice and was only a good guitar player.) In summation, I think that B. B. King's The Christmas Collection would only be good background music for a loud Christmas party! Unfortunately, if you are an audiophile with high musical standards, and most enjoy sitting quietly in the same room as the music and carefully listening to each and every note of high quality music with both outstanding vocals and outstanding instrumentation, as I do, you will be very disappointed by B. B. King's rough and flat vocals on The Christmas Collection. I'm going to fairly award The Christmas Collection a two star rating. I don't like The Christmas Collection and will sell it because 1) I focus most upon the vocals when I listen to a cd and 2) B. B. King's rough and flat vocals are so prominent and so disturbing that The Christmas Collection cd becomes very disappointing to me. I strongly recommend that if you have high listening standards, as I do, you should NOT BUY The Christmas Collection! (An outstanding all-classic BLUES Christmas cd remains a very promising idea that should be further pursued; all fans of BLUES music might eventually purchase such a Christmas cd. The problem is that a classic BLUES Christmas cd has not yet been created by an outstanding BLUES vocalist. Robert Cray, Susan Tedeschi, and Sugar Ray Norcia are the most outstanding vocalists in contemporary BLUES music. However, Robert Cray typically sings soul blues music and Sugar Ray Norcia typically sings jazz blues music. Susan Tedeschi is more of a BLUES generalist. Thus Susan Tedeschi is probably the BLUES vocalist who might best create an outstanding classic BLUES Christmas cd. This possibility assumes that Susan Tedeschi is first informed about this very promising idea so that she can then create an outstanding classic BLUES Christmas cd, and thus eliminate the void caused by B. B. King's failure to do so.) I also strongly recommend that you immediately purchase Roomful of Blues' Roomful of Christmas cd and then much enjoy their jazz blues Christmas music, sung so very well by Sugar Ray Norcia, during each and every Christmas season of your life!

John