Complete Recordings 1949-1962

"My singing was more popular in the early years than my guitar playing." B.B. King."When I heard T-Bone Walker play the electric guitar, I just had to have one." B.B. King."Playing the guitar is like telling the truth." B.B. King.There have been a number of multi-disc reissues of King's music over the years. Some nicely done (and expensive) and some not all that great. But if you're looking for a nice broad overview of King's formative years, this 6 CD set is worth considering. The sound is decent/good--especially when you consider the age of the various recordings--but there are occasional differences in sound levels on a few tracks. As usual with multi-disc sets from the Enlightenment label, the booklet is relatively useless. If you're looking for session and/or personnel information forget it. These sets focus on the music with only the barest of information. But any recording/personnel info can be easily found in books on King/the blues and/or on line. While I would like an informative booklet--for the low price I can't really complain--the music is what's ultimately important. But as with other box sets from Enlightenment, beware of the term "complete". Sometimes tracks are left off because of space considerations. But again--the music on this King set (and the other jazz sets in this series) is unassailable, and will give you a great feel for the artist and style of music. Besides leaving out alternate tracks this seems to be a very good representation of King's music during these years. The discs snap inside a fairly flimsy plastic jewel case with hinges that will break fairly easily, which fits inside a fairly flimsy outer box--but for the money you can't complain.This set brings together King's early (and arguably) best work. From his 1949 stuff for the Bullett label recorded at radio station WDIA ("Got The Blues", "Take A Swing With Me", "Miss Martha King", "When Your Baby Packs Up And Goes", which didn't sell) into his Modern/RPM recordings (by Sam Phillips), and just into his Kent era recordings ("Rambler", "My Sometime Baby", "Down Now") in the 1960's. These 168 sides are where King made his reputation as a blues singer/performer. King was on fire throughout this era, performing hundreds of gigs a year. He was determined to make a name for himself--and he succeeded. Plus, he never stopped learning ("If you went to my room right now you'd find a Blind Lemon tape that I've been listening to.") as King said in 1980. His personal record collection was in excess of 30,000 albums--which were donated to the University of Mississippi Blues Archive. Self-effacing ("I never go out on a limb on stage trying something new. I make enough mistakes without it.") about his playing, King continued to refine his singing/playing as he matured.Disc 1 has his earliest stuff and is kind of a primer for his later work. It's on Disc 2 where things began to heat up. With smoking background horns King lets his guitar take center stage for some incendiary solos--full of bight and stinging sound. From instrumentals like "Boogie Rock" to pop tunes like "Sixteen Tons", King begins to really explore his music. And with tunes like "Woke Up This Morning", "Everyday I Have The Blues", and many others this is where King made his name. Later discs have many horn based arrangements with King's guitar out front for his typically economical solos. There's a few tracks with strings that King would use much more in later years, but most tunes are a combination of hot sounding horns and his guitar and vocals. Saying that, there's also a few instrumentals with his guitar front and center and smokin'."I like to go back to some of the older things so that I can keep the same feeling." B.B. King.Yes, some of his most popular and best work was done after the years included here, but for a good look at his exciting early stuff, this set can't be beat. Is every track equally good? No. There are some lesser tunes/arrangements here, but at the very least they're examples of the kind of music King hoped would attract a larger audience. Simply put--King's work during this era is some of the best post-war electric blues--ever. His influence is still felt today and will be felt far into the future. His economical guitar style--full of string bends and left -hand vibrato--comes from Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker, and Lonnie Johnson, plus no doubt others. His single string bends and his long holding of notes were his emulation of slide guitar players---a style King admits ("I got stupid fingers. They won't work.") he never could master. This is tough music--the arrangements were sharp (listen to the horns on many of these tracks) and without frills (I'm thinking of later orchestrations of his music), his guitar work was increasingly intense as he worked his way through a song, and his gospel inflected, declamatory vocals made his music come alive."When I'm playing a solo, I hear me singing through the guitar." B.B. King.Sadly, with his recent passing, King's music takes on even more importance (if that's possible) as a genuine, original touchstone of the blues. His music is part of the foundation of the genre and always will be. And this collection of his early work is where he made his reputation. If this set had come in a nice, lavish package and included an in-depth booklet, this would be considered a major reissue of King's music--that's how good and important this music is. If you don't already own one of the multi-disc sets that includes this early music this set is something worth considering adding to your blues shelf.

Product is great. But yet another broken CD case. Keeping empty cases on hand is a must if you buy CD's from Amazon. But I don't keep 6 disk cases on hand. Trying to decide to return or not.

… became the iconic B.B. King. Like finding gold hidden in your own backyard, this is a monumental discovery for B.B. aficionados who believed King's preserved recording career began with 1956's Singin' the Blues. Among the early cuts, the listener can hear the Sinatra influence in the fledgling crooner's voice. The musical phrases and simple lyrics that evolved into future classic Blues tracks are to be heard throughout. It's more than the evolution of the artist though, this six disc set is a history of the genesis of Rock and Roll. Truly a spectacular find. All tracks are clearly listed, dates and musicians are not. This is a must-have collection. It may represent the best $20.00 this reviewer ever spent.

As others have noted, this is a "no frills" set. I am playing it on a basic boom box but believe the production quirks described by others (e.g., uneven volume between some tracks) are probably justified. The Bihari brothers would issue B.B.'s LP's and then knock them down to $ .99 clearance on Crown Records rather quickly. There may or may not be tracks that the Bihari's released only on 45's and/or titles that were unreleased. I have not compared the track list in this set to each of the LP's on AllMusic but this appears to be the complete 12 LP's until B.B. signed with ABC Records.I rated it 5 * largely for the value of this package and also because this is B.B. King's best period by far. Enjoy!

This is a GREAT CD box set of the late great B.B. King for the price you just can't beat it! Most of the material here, as stated on the box, is from his very early years. It was surprising to hear on the first disc the horn player taking most of the solos. Though there are a few songs where BB does solo, his trademark stinging vibrato is still in the developing stage. The cover of the box set shows BB in a suit wearing shorts and that alone is the price of admission. If you're a BB King Fan buy this box set and hear the man become the KING!

This is a truly great set of his recordings.

It's a lot of music. And good music at that. You need this. You got blues. Put this on, get dressed up (shower 1st preferably) and head out to the nearest watering hole and make some new friends.

Some artists' early work is a disaster of poor recordings and mediocre material at a time when they were cutting their teeth. For BB King, this was a golden era. These are fine recordings of incredibly listenable songs, and eight hour reminder of the genius that was lost this year. Be warned, the price is stellar but it buys you rather spartan packaging.

This is a great way to pick up a huge amount of great music at a very reasonable cost. The booklet is also OK, the only problem with my copy is the case which has a plastic fitting to hold the first and last CDs in place, it falls out! The discs however stay in place without it, so no real problem. Great photo on the front and only a few dud tracks out of well over a hundred, a real bargain.

Not bad, but some of these are not the originals. Just as an example - "How Do I Love You" on disc 2 is a mid 60s version he recorded for ABC-Paramount, not the 50s RPM original (it's also a very distorted sounding disc which has been dubbed off-center). There's really no excuse for not listing the year for each of these recordings, especially when the set is accompanied by an 8 page booklet which could easily have included that detail. This release is a glaring example of why Ace in the UK should give fans what they really deserve - a 100% legit release of a singles set. Another OOC company (Acrobat) claim to have issued a complete singles collection, however it sounds to me to have been sourced from this release and suffers from the same problems. A lot of the singles have appeared on different Ace CDs over the years mixed in with album-only recordings, although some of those are missing overdubs which only appeared on the 45s. There are also missing b-sides. There is no dedicated singles package per se. As a result, his fans have to go out and purchase a lot of King CDs to add his singles to their CD collections. A package which finally brings together both sides of those Modern/RPM singles from the master tapes is long overdue. Come on Ace!

Excellent collection. Some tracks must not be missed. Highly recommended.

I have always loved this man's music, so this was an expansion of his music in my collection

Class!!!