Let's Hide Away & Dance Away

Freddie King, Freddy King | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 16, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: King
• ASIN: B00000179Z
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,877 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #31 in Music > Blues > Regional Blues > Texas Blues
  • #70 in Music > Blues > Chicago Blues

Track Listings

1. Hide Away

2. Butterscotch

3. Sen-Sa-Shun

4. Side Tracked

5. The Stumble

6. Wash Out

7. San-Ho-Zay

8. Just Pickin'

9. Heads Up

10. In The Open

11. Out Front

12. Swooshy

Editorial Reviews

1999 reissue of the 1961 all-instrumental album by this Texas blues guitar hero. Features 'Hideaway' and 'The Stumble', later covered by Eric Clapton, Peter Green and others. 11 tracks total. 1988 release.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent collection of insturmentals, November 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Let's Hide Away & Dance Away (Audio CD)

Having listened to most of Freddie Kings recorded work from around 1968 on, I was completely unprepared for the truly brilliant performances on this album's dozen tunes. King makes playing the guitar seem as natural walking. The songs show a tremendous variety in content, approach, technique and style--something one might not expect from even the best blues albums. Each song has some of the catchiest melodies you're likely to ever hear from a guitar player in any genre. And they are fun. Do yourself a big favor. Buy this album. Then buy "Freddie King give you a Bonanza of Insturmentals". Because of the dozens of blues/rock albums cut in a similiar vein, these two are at the top of the list.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Is Where His Reputation Begins - And Pretty Much Stays, July 7, 2001

By 

BluesDuke "A sacred cow is worth but one thin... (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let's Hide Away & Dance Away (Audio CD)

Of the three Kings of the blues, Freddie King (or Freddy King, as he was billed during his early period recording for King/Federal) had the most apparent pop sensibilities - at least, he did until B.B. King hipped up to letting pop embellishments enhance his blues (not for nothing was "The Thrill Is Gone" the biggest single hit of his career) and Albert King hooked up with Stax and let the deep soul side his blues had previously just hinted come full force. Like his Yexas predecessor Clarence (Gatemouth) Brown (who also had the jazz sensibilities long enough noted in B.B. King's music), the third King so consciously sought the hooks and the grips of pop that it shouldn't be a surprise that he found reasonable enough commercial success from almost the word go.

But Freddie King also gave proof to the idea that, often as not, the most enduring art springs from the most elemental commercial impetus. Looking for the hooks he certainly was, but in the process he uncorked a round of recordings which had a profound influence on the coming blues revival - young guitarists in England and the United States were breaking their fingers copying his licks as arduously as those of any of the other blues guitarmeisters. (Dave Marsh, for one, has written of "Hide Away," his signature instrumental, "If you can imagine one song inspiring Cream's "Wheels of Fire," which is exactly what it did, "Hide Away" will grab you as very rock and roll, indeed," though he had mostly in mind the live cuts on that album; Eric Clapton, who cut a searing version of the song in his days with John Mayall, has long admitted that Freddie King had at least as much influence upon him as did Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.) Working with a very stripped quartet (the keyboard is almost an implicit rather than explicit player in several places), the future Texas Cannonball cut loose with round after round of slice-off-the-trunk guitar playing, striking for both its simplicity and its fiery lyricism riding a groove which suggests Texas bluesmen had no compunction about hipping up to the punchier R and B beat. But he was equally at home with material which sounded as though it could have turned up at a surf party on the sneak ("Swooshy" and "San-Ho-Zay" being the two most obvious and engaging examples; indeed, this album would actually see a mid-1960s repackaging AS an album just perfect for a surf party).

Damn near everything which attached to Freddie King's name when discussing his subsequent influence was produced for this album, including "The Stumble," which got a steroid shot into the permanent blues pantheon when future Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green squeezed out a lickety-split version on Mayall's "A Hard Road" album; "Hide Away," "San-Ho-Zay," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Wash Out," and "Butterscotch," among others. It's as to-the-gut as Texas blues gets even now, and it's also one of the classic dance albums of the early 1960s. In due course, King would give his vocal cords a workout and a good one, but if you're looking to know where the man's reputation begins and pretty much stays, this is the album (along with its followup, "Freddy King Gives You A Bonanza of Instrumentals") which answers on both counts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Let's Hide Away & Dance Away (Audio CD)

Early 60s blues guitar instrumentals played with fire and precision as hip dance-pop singles. Sounds strange in theory, but succeeds brilliantly on every level. Catchy, smoking, hip blues.