Customer Reviews

Live At The Electric Ballroom

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4 star:		(1)
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This is a great live blues CD--I call it the 70's counterpart to B.B. King's famously heralded "Live At The Regal" from the 60's. Freddie King sings and plays like a man possessed by a blue devil! The sound quality is pretty good, not great, but good enough to capture the artistry of this short-lived bluesman. The radio studio cuts on acoustic provide a glimpse of another side of Freddie King's guitar talents that are largely unknown--solo acoustic. He modestly claims that he's out of his element playing an acoustic, but he does a great job, of course.

The centerpiece to this great CD is his flooring version of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" (this is one of the live cuts with a full band). Both his vocal and guitar work on this cut are absolutely devastating! The blues doesn't get any better than that!

Highly recommended for adding to your Freddie King collection!

The phrase "house rocking" suffers from debased coinage. Any journeyman or journeywoman blues artist's record company will slap it on their live CD without giving a second thought to the standard of performance those words properly describe.

But imagine for a moment the smoky blues club of your utopia. Nattily dressed men and big-legged women in short, short miniskirts... sweatily grooving to the hottest electric band you've ever heard. Rasping soul vocals. Stinging guitar leads.

*That* is the kind of house-rocking Freddie King performed in The Electric Ballroom. The result was one of the very best live blues albums ever recorded.

If the people at your next party won't dance to it, you need new friends.

Great cd for your blues collection. Worth every penny.......

Freddie King is perhaps the most progressive and least known of the three famous "Kings of Blues", Albert and BB King being the other two.

Cd has two in-studio acoustic performances (only known Freddie King acoustic recordings)and a great live 1974 show.

what can i say freddie king is my favorite blues man, heck my favorite artist in any genre. and this is one of the finest live cds i have ever heard. the interviews clips are nice as well all in all go get it dont waste time just pick it up and be transported to heaven

freddie king, legendary blues guitarist, lets it rip in this recording. the introduction/interview with freddie is great, but what makes them more than collectable is the two songs that freddie plays on acoustic guitar. he tells his interviewer that he is not an acoustic guitar player, and the guitar becomes a tool in the hands of a master. the live set that follows is unbelieveable. throw in some blues, funk, blues, soul, blues, gospel, and a little more blues, mix them all together and you have an idea of what this set was like. you will find yourself singing along with "let the good times roll". as you hear freddie turning out the licks on his axe, you can hear the sound that has influenced many blues guitarists since. blues fans - add it to your collection. guitar fans - add it to your collection.

Which King was/is the best? BB? Albert 'the velvet bulldozer'? or Freddie?
I knew them all, and without a doubt Freddie was the most exciting of the three. He was to share a bill at U of R in 1969 with Otis Rush, which I produced. Freddie's manager never told him of the gig. Otis took a wrong turn in NY and didn't show up until 4:30 in the morning and played his butt off. I got to meet Freddie a few weeks later when he was booked at a roadhouse in Rochester for two nights. He didn't know of the prior booking.
Didn't matter, when he played those two nights, he was on fire! Over time, I have known and worked with almost all the great blues artists. Maybe, just maybe Luther Allison could have matched him on stage...but knowing both of them, Freddie would have cut him on stage. Big Time!

If you are reading this then you are probably a Freddie King fan who is familiar with his material. This allows you to hear some classic live stuff. Can't go wrong.