By John Orr

I never got to see Albert King at his best live. I saw him once at a JJ's Blues Festival at the San Jose Fairgrounds, and once at the Monterey Blues Festival.

On the first occasion, he spent a lot of time berating the fellas in the Nitecry Blues Band, who were backing him up. The second time, he just wasn't into it or something.

Hard to believe someone could sing "Born Under a Bad Sign" and make someone yawn, but he did -- and it was his tune.

But, I have and love his great live album, "Wednesday Night in San Francisco," have heard lots more, and I know blues players and fans who didn't just like Albert King live, they loved him.

I regret that I, personally didn't seen him do the most with his blues power ... but I know it was there.

I wish he had taken the route that B.B. King and John Lee Hooker took -- to tour with his own band, people who knew him and loved him and took care of him, rather than taking his chances with local pick-up bands.

And I wish I'd had the opportunity to see him in his own stomping grounds.

I'm glad he left behind the fine recordings he did.

And all of blues owes the man a debt, just like every modern novelist owes something to Hemingway. Read the story at right to find out why.

The following was first published in July 1992, before the death of Albert King.

Don't you lie to me
Now, don't you lie to me
Because it makes me mad
I get evil as a man can be

-- Albert King

By John Orr

It may already too late to hear the best of Albert King, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Back in the late '60s, early '70s, all those Fillmore hippies got to hear the man some people think was the greatest country blues artist ever. Really lucky people got to hear him in small clubs, if he felt like doing some extra shows while he was out here for Bill Graham.

But in 1988, at the JJ's Blues Festival at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, he was nothing but cranky and irascible, yelling at the backing band -- led by Rene' Solis, one of the nicest and hardest-working journeyman blues players in the Bay Area -- and hardly deigning to share any of his famous guitar fire with us.

A couple of years later, in the afternoon at the Monterery Blues Festival, it was if he was trying to sleep through the warm summer day. His deep rich voice was just there, like a blanket. We all wanted to
take a nap.

He tells some people he's retired, at age 69, although he still does a few shows in Chicago clubs and the occasional blues festival. He wouldn't sit down to let Jose Luis' Villegas make a portrait of him unless we paid him money to do so. Didn't want to talk to me unless we paid him money.

And yet ...

If you ask John Lee Hooker who his guitar heroes are, the first name out of his mouth will be Albert King.

For young blues fans who just came to the music or who came to the blues through Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughn, finding out about Albert King is a revelation. It's like when we first turn on to Shakespeare in high school and find out all those clever phrases we've been hearing all our lives started with this old British cat.

Bend a string into a high whine and slide it into a hammer and let go a laugh, and you're doing what Albert King did decades ago.

Listen to Eric Clapton on ``Strange Brew,'' then go dig up an old Stax record of Albert King playing ``Oh, Pretty Woman.'' Guess who played those notes first. Cream recorded a nice version of King's ``Born Under a Bad Sign,'' but it isn't nearly as powerful as that big, tough man himself singing ``If it wasn't for bad luck, if it wasn't for real bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all.''

Compare Jimi Hendrix' ``Goin' to California'' with King's. Stevie Ray Vaughn
learned so much, and copied so much, of Albert King's licks -- giving credit
publicly where credit was due -- that New Musical Express in England once
described Vaughn as ``a young Texan who apparently believes that Albert King is
God and the Lord should be praised regularly.''

Jose Luis' Villegas went to Chicago to photograph King at Blues Etc., a club
about the size of JJ's Downtown in San Jose, where King, cranky as usual, yelled at some other photographers for using flashes. But it was King at his best, in his element. That famous Gibson Flying Vee guitar screamed and moaned as the best string bender of them all yanked and
beat the blues out of it.

If we're lucky, we'll get to seem him perform like that in the Bay Area again
sometime -- not in the daylight, out of his element at a festival, but where he
belongs, in the dark of night, on the small stage of a club, just him and his magnificent music.

Hey baby! I say, there's got to be some changes made.
Yeah, baby, you know it's got to be some changes made.
Because you think you're so wise,
I found another babe to take your place.

-- Albert King