Customer Reviews

Spotlight on Lucille

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cut between 1960 and late 1961 this is one of the King's most brilliant works. It is all instrumental and all perfect. So maybe all the songs don't sound different from each other to an untrained ear. However this couldn't be a classier album. If you enjoy the horn layden [ extremely tasteful and unintrusive horns ] blues, this is it. It is blues that blues lovers and jazz lovers of all kinds can listen to. The Bobby Bland fan- the Tony Bennet fan, the guitar player, the piano player, the human being with taste-Anybody! 43 minutes long. Good with headphones or without. This is one of my absolute favorites. It shines and swings and stings. Tougher tone than lucille usually takes but it is okay, it works. This is a masterpiece of a record with no dullness at all. It makes sure that you don't get bored listening casually or intently. B.B. has a lot of records that are sort of- more of the same. Good stuff, or great stuff, but same stuff. This is sort of a breath of fresh air in the catalog. No it doesn't have that great booming voice with the exciting high notes thrown in here and there. But it doesn't have any downfalls in what it does have- perfect blues music with style and soul and class. Nothing quite as beautiful and brilliantly crafted as his instrumental ''Blues Boys Tune'' from his Blues on The Bayou album but just as bright and with tremendous energy. B.B. Picks the licks with pure intuition on all albums, this is no exception even if it is not as signature as some of his other records. It is completely based off of feel and touch music, not technical logic, and as always it works perfectly and probably better that way. Whoever played bandleader kept the horns tight and let Lucille take the spotlight with whatever she wanted to play. The other instruments at hand are totally sympathetic to her needs as well. I recommend this album for anybody who wants something that sounds good.

After 25 years of listening to BB King, I stumbled on this album in the "miscellaneous" bin in a music shop. It is the first all-instrumental BB I have heard and, baby, it is sweet! Comprised of recordings from the early '60s, the cuts range from soft ballads to rolling numbers which define why BB is a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer. The band provides great backup with swanky horns and hot sax riffs. For $11.50, "Spotlight" is a million bucks worth of rockin' big band blues with some high-energy work on Lucille. Buy this one if you don't have it.

I suspect that many of BB's listeners are, like myself, amateur (or professional) guitar players. This CD has enough brilliant musical ideas to keep a player occupied for quite a long time. A lot of it can sound deceptively simple and easy to play but the beautifully musical way BB shifts back and forth between major and minor scales and blues and jazz licks is awe inspiring. If all a player ever learns is the stuff BB plays on this disc it'll be more than enough.

This is an all instrumental sampler from BB's classic 50's and 60's lp's, no vocals. B.B. seems inspired, and improvises a bit on a jazz level. B.B. is backed on each track by inoovating big bands, with jazz or swing based arrnagements, which feature jazz horn solos written in teh arrangements. This is a great cd taht casts BB in the light of a jazz/blues guitarists, and prooves he's a pretty gutsy player, in the smoothest & most accesible way possible. Fun rumblin' blues and jazz.

There are very few CD's that I would classify as "mandatory", but this is one of them. If you are new to blues, this is a perfect CD for your collection. Whether you're 8 or 80, this disc contains the most absolutely beautiful music you've ever heard. At low volume, you've got intelligent, elegant background music (that will make your dinner guests think you're more sophisticated than you are!). If you crank it up, you can experience the full texture of fluid guitar playing and all of the complexity that blues has to offer. In short, I would describe "Spotlight on Lucille" as the "Dark Side of the Moon" of blues music.
If you're a blues afficionado and don't already have this in your collection, then shame on you! Get it, enjoy it, and enjoy it again!

It's time for an update of this cd! BB's guitar sound is always his own, but it's changed over the years much more than his voice: technical changes have more influence over instruments than vocals. To hear this time compression of so many of his sounds on this one cd is to enlighten the listener to the truth behind the seemingly unchanging BB. Hey, BB, let's start at the end of this one and do it again!

This time on Spotlight on Lucille B. B. King lets his voice rest while putting the entire focus upon both his guitar playing and his outstanding blues band. I don't usually highly appreciate all-instrumental music, but Spotlight on Lucille is an important exception. Spotlight on Lucille always swings in the way that only an excellent combination of blues and jazz music can. Spotlight on Lucille brings out the full beauty of the guitar, saxophone, oboe, piano, organ, trumpet, and drums as shining sources of great instrumental blues music! B. B. King does provide us with plenty of catchy blues electric guitar highlights on Spotlight on Lucille, and these electric guitar highlights are always entirely appropriate to the song and very well blended with the rest of the band. B. B. King's guitar work is always true to the music and is never offered simply as a means of showing off. It is refreshing to listen to Spotlight on Lucille, where the guitar is used as an important blues instrument and not presented along with the voice as the two sole highlights of the music. Whenever one listens to a favorite B. B. King cd, one is bound to be impressed by King's guitar work and his band. However, Spotlight on Lucille does the very best job of truly showcasing both B. B. King's guitar playing and the outstanding talents of members of B. B. King's band! I give Spotlight on Lucille a four star rating only because it is not, in my mind, one of the three most compelling of all of B. B. King's cds. All three of my most compelling B. B. King cds are recordings of live concerts, and include his vocals. I find that B. B. King's voice, when in excellent form, adds an important dimension to the overall high quality of some of his music. Yet Spotlight on Lucille does provide us with an outstanding clear window into the absolute importance of musical instruments in producing excellent blues music! Every song on Spotlight on Lucille is impeccably performed! The sound quality of Spotlight on Lucille is also excellent with clear separation between instruments. I recommend Spotlight on Lucille to you and hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do. Take a perhaps brief but sometimes very important rest from all of the vocals and give a careful listen to Spotlight on Lucille; it is not only a beautiful instrumental cd to personally enjoy, but also a perfect cd to use as great background music at a gathering of your friends.

John

HOW LUCILLE GOT HER NAME. IN A CLUB SOMEWHERE WHERE BB WAS PLAYING AT A ROWDY PLACE DOING A GIG AND A FIGHT BROKE OUT BETWEEN SOME FOLKS AND SOMEHOW STARTED A FIRE AND THE PLACE BURNED DOWN AND BB MADE IT OUT OKAY AND LATER FOUND OUT WHAT STARTED THE BRAWL WAS A WOMEN NAMED LUCILLE. THIS IS A GOOD CD ALL INSTRUMENTAL MY BEST BB KING CD SO FAR.