Every Day I Have the Blues
Sweet Little Angel
It's My Own Fault
How Blue Can You Get
Please Love Me
You Upset Me Baby
Worry, Worry
Woke Up This Mornin'
You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now
Help the Poor
BB King and his band had been playing well over 300 dates a year since the mid-50s by the time they rolled up at the Regal Theater in Chicago on November 21, 1964, to play the show that was recorded for this album.
It’s a blues-bore cliché to talk about B.B. King’s mastery of the ‘one note’. But it’s true enough on this live set, in which he runs the emotional gamut from the soul food of Help The Poor to the heart-in-fingers phrasing of Sweet Little Angel, for the luckiest crowd in Chicago. What makes the recording so special is King’s electric interaction with his audience, which climaxes with the sexual innuendo of Sweet Little Angel (‘I love the way she spreads her wings’) and his ode to a two-legged heart attack, You Upset Me Baby.
The sleeve touts it as ‘The Definitive Recording Of Blues In Live Performance', Rolling Stone Mick Taylor described it as “B.B. King in his prime”, and many consider it to be the greatest blues album of all time.
"It came out when I was still young and still trying to get going in music," Walter Trout told us. "It’s the ultimate recording of a master blues man commanding an audience and taking this audience on this journey with him and also involving the audience in what he’s doing."
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in January 1965
- The Rolling Stones No. 2 - The Rolling Stones
- Live! The Ike & Tina Turner Show - Ike & Tina Turner
- Four Tops - Four Tops
- Cilla - Cilla Black
- Dean Martin Hits Again - Dean Martin
- The Folk Album - Trini Lopez
- The Good Life With The Drifters - The Drifters
- Live in Concert - Ray Charles
- The Zombies - The Zombies
What they said...
"More than anything else, Live at the Regal is a textbook example of how to set up a live performance. Talking to the crowd, setting up the tunes with a vignette, King is the consummate entertainer. Live at the Regal is an absolutely necessary acquisition for fans of B.B. King or blues music in general. A high point, perhaps even the high point, for uptown blues." (AllMusic)
"King – who can't sing and play guitar at the same time, or at least doesn't – would bend notes to get an emotional, keening sound. And he would deliver abrupt, brassy sounding lines which he would cut off quickly as a trumpeter or saxophonist might. You can hear all of that, and much more, as he entertains his Regal Theatre audience (he always liked a spoken word intro) on a set that was recorded in his pre-hit period." (Elsewhere)
"The album captures a couple of great moments where B.B. interacts warmly with the audience – at the start of It’s My Own Fault and How Blue Can You Get – doubtless only a fraction of his chat during the evening, but showing that he was a consummate entertainer with a natural rapport with his audience. But for the most part, King let the sincerity of his singing and the piercing quality of his guitar do the talking." (Down At The Crossroads)
What you said...
Greg Schwepe: In listening to B.B. King’s Live At The Regal for the very first time this week, I realized it had quite a reputation. I can remember reading a half dozen or more times where this album was listed on a rock guitarist’s own “most influential album” or “Personal Top 5” list of theirs. “Well, if so and so hotshot guitar player likes it, it must be good.”
I listened on my Spotify app on my phone through a set of conduction headphones while on a run. Not bad from a sonic standpoint. But then I realized I got it all wrong. This is not the way to listen to this album. I needed to hear it on vinyl when I was much younger while sitting in the basement of a cool uncle’s house listening on his “hi-fi console” while sitting there looking at the album cover as you listened to all 10 tracks. That's how it’s done. Or in this day and age, listened to on a mega-bucks Technics turntable and Bose speakers. That’d work too!
Of course, B.B. can play the blues out the wazoo on “Lucille.” But it’s the showmanship and rapport with the crowd (which can be heard thoroughly on this recording) which is just as good. You can truly picture the scene in that theatre. And what’s the saying with blues guitar; “it’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” Something like that. That space between the notes which also draws you in.
No need to review the songs. A lot of these are blues classics and have probably been done by other artists over the years. I also like how B.B. can change from his falsetto to a bluesy growl in a heartbeat.
Overall, a very entertaining album from one of the influential blues guitarists of our times. 8 out of 10 on this one. Glad B.B. ran back into that burning building to grab Lucille.
Dale Munday: I had forgotten that I had this album and was more than happy to reacquaint myself with it. 1964, this must be as far back as we have gone ?
An undisputed master of the blues in both his smooth, fluid guitar licks and commanding vocal style, he has this audience in his hands and I love the respectful way he addresses them. Which brings me to my only issue, that over-exuberant crowd could have been dialled down a little in the mix. Kind of reminds me of Cheap Trick at the Budokan.
Anyway. The Brits were certainly paying attention, fortunately.
Mike Canoe: B.B. King's Live At The Regal is like when your parents would drag you to a concert with them and, despite your best intentions, you would actually have a pretty good time. The album could be called Love at the Regal, because the affection in the room is palpable. Love for the blues itself as King works through a set made up primarily of classics, love between King and his band, and, of course, love between King and the audience, who seem to be having the time of their lives.
Andrew Cumming: My friend, Relis, likes to talk about the difference between ‘rough blues’ and ‘smooth blues’. Rough blues being Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker etc and smooth being B.B. King and, more latterly, Robert Cray. As an example of smooth blues it just doesn’t get better than Live At The Regal. Great songs, great guitar playing. The vibe is fantastic. You just want to be there. And actually is one of those rare live albums that can actually make you feel like you are.
Live At The Regal is really good. And yet, and bit like listening to Ed Sheeran vs, say, AC/DC, the only problem with even the best smooth blues, compared to rough blues, it’s just not quite as fun.
Philip Qvist: The joys of this Page - it gets me listening to records that I would have in all probability avoided - especially one that was recorded 10 days before I was born; and from an artist like BB King who, for all his accomplishments, has never appealed to me.
Yes, I have heard a few of his songs over the years, I definitely know his skill as a blues artist and guitarist. And yes, I was aware of his Live At The Regal album - I probably had heard a couple of tracks from it in the past.
So with that all in mind, what did I think of Live At The Regal, which by all accounts is one of his best albums - and one that has been universally praised by the music world?
Well short answer is; I like it - a lot. It's nice and short, there is no feeling that the songs are long just for the sheer sake of it and there is no doubting the quality of the songs, the artist and his backing band.
Best tracks were Every Day I Have The Blues, Worry Worry, Please Love Me and You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now - but in reality the whole album is quality, with no excess fat on it at all.
If nothing else I did learn that B.B. did write his own songs, even if he was a great interpreter of other people's songs. Quality, this definitely deserves a high score from me this week.
Gary Claydon: Quite simply one the greatest blues albums by one of the blues' greatest exponents. There isn't a single wasted note on Live At The Regal. No soloing for the sake of it, no long drawn-out 'look at me' passages, just jazz-tinged R&B and blues from a band totally in sync both with each other and with their audience. That voice, that left-hand vibrato and string bends that would influence many a guitar hero to come. Wonderful stuff.
Gus Schultz: Gotta love the blues! Why, without the blues we wouldn't have classic rock as we know it. B.B. King was certainly an architect of the blues with his distinct full and warm vibrato notes from his es 335 to his baritone husky vocals. His style was that of call and respond blues which influenced many musicians in blues and rock, he also had such an easygoing way of performing that made it look like he was enjoying playing as much as the audience was enjoying listening, this LP is proof of that. It's a great listen of some blues classics by a classic blues icon, especially if you have a vinyl copy.
Glenn McDonald: What a remarkable record this is. B.B. King’s Live At The Regal is, quite simply, a foundational pillar of electric blues. Hard to believe when listening to the vitality contained within these grooves that it was recorded some 60 years ago. An album so well regarded that is has been cited as an influence by almost every Blues artist to come along in its wake, not least the big star of modern Blues Joe Bonamassa, who even borrowed its artwork for one of his own releases (check out Joe and Beth Hart’s Seesaw sleeve). An album that despite its age remains ever present in Rolling Stone’s Top 500 list, even after that controversial 2020 revision. An album that has been selected for permanent preservation in the Library of Congress. So do I really need to say anything about it considering all of that? Definitely…
The music on this record blows me away every time I listen to it, and that covers hundreds of listens over thirty years, topped up by another ten at least this week. Its power and impact have not diminished. From upbeat brass-supported R&B shuffles, to wailing laments, in terms of the blues it has it all. So good is B.B. he gets introduced twice, once at the start of each side.
The band are faultless, supporting the master without hitting a single wrong note. Noticeable, but never in the way of the star turn. B.B.’s voice is arresting in its versatility, moving from grumbling sonority to clean pleading falsetto in an instant. And when he pulls Lucille up his body to take a keening solo, full of expressive single note bends that literally talk to you, the ever-present and excited crowd talk back. Responding in almost orgiastic elation, as the atmosphere reaches for and fills the rafters of the venue. If ever there were a live album where the crowd function as an additional instrument, this is it.
I’m not going to give a track-by-track rundown. But I do have to mention the trilogy of tracks that run together and make up the majority of the first half. Starting with Sweet Little Angel, B.B. is fully in love and loved back. When he asks his woman for a nickel, she gives him a twenty-dollar bill, when he asks for a drink of liquor he gets a whiskey still. By track two It’s My Own Fault he’s been cheating, taking this generous woman’s paycheque and throwing it around in pursuit of other suitors. She’s leaving him, going off with the boys to Illinois.
And finally, a victim of his actions, he asks How Blue Can You Get. None more Blue, he gave her seven children and now she wants to give ‘em back. A cautionary tale, one that encompasses the very essence of the Blues across a fifteen-minute stellar performance. Such is the power of B.B.’s vocal expression and playing here that you can hear the audience hang on his every utterance and note. It ranks among the best Blues ever committed to vinyl or visited upon a theatre stage.
Is this B.B. King’s best album? Well I don’t know about that, it faces some stiff competition from his best studio works, such as Completely Well featuring his signature tune The Thrill is Gone, the hipster’s choice Indianola Mississippi Seeds, and the oft-overlooked but brilliant There Must Be A Better World Somewhere from the start of the 80s.
Is this his best live album? Again it’s up against a few other corkers (Live In Cook County Jail, and First Time… Live recorded with Bobby “Blue” Bland). But yes, I believe it is. In fact I would go so far as to say this is quite possibly the best live blues album of all time. And if you think I am overstating it, I refer you back to the top of this review.
Final score: 8.73 (48 votes cast, total score 418)
Join the Album Of The Week Club on Facebook to join in. The history of rock, one album at a time.
