Tonight’s the night.
It is 1977. B.B. King is sporting a snappy three-piece suit and an even snappier seven-piece band. He is In France. More precisely, in the city of Nancy—a drive of a couple of hours east out of Paris in your Renault. The sea of onlookers are polite putty in his 52-year-old hands, sending up great ovations after each of the 14 songs. And both he and “Lucille,” his shapely Gibson ES-335 guitar, give them every reason to, merci beaucoup, by making the most of their 80 minutes together on the prestigious stage. A greatest-hits package is being peppered with newer additions, such as the freely swinging “I Like to Live the Love,” in addition to step-back-from-the-microphone jams. The King is “on.”
Up to now, the only way to have heard this treat from the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival was to have been among the 3,000 plus lucky ones seated in attendance on that Friday evening in early October. For everyone else, tape was—officially and professionally and fortunately—rolling for the entire duration of that highly energized performance. Tape that teasingly never saw the light of day, however. Never released over these past 47 years. No longer, though.
The live setting begins paying dividends immediately. After the “Blue Monk/Caldonia” fusion serves as both warmup fanfare and out-of-the-gate icebreaker, no time gets wasted darting right into “Sweet Little Angel,” a smash success for King as early as 1956. Compared to that original issue as well as even on 1965’s Live at the Regal, B.B. is in no hurry this time, taking four-and-a-half minutes to bend strings before uttering a single wing-spreading lyric. Alone, that wordlessly burning fuse is already longer than either of those as well as many other versions in total. When King does eventually sing above the warm, diffuse haze rising off the organ and the tom-tom drums throwing fits and the triple-horn section bursting brightly, he makes it well worth the wait.
Because King’s voice is a marvel of delivery, here and throughout. A range of vocal—and, in turn, emotional—shadings are in play, from a purr to a growl. Then, without warning, he’ll open up the throttle for volume while regulating the degree of gruffness that comes roaring out. Sometimes, he’ll drop back calmly to baseline. Other times, doubling down by ratcheting up or even sliding up higher, and up higher still, into a falsetto exclamation point. You definitely take notice.
Under B.B.’s watch, “It’s Just a Matter of Time” sheds its pop skin for that of a slow blues. Whereas Brook Benton originally delivered his composition as a slyly self-confident stroll, King opts for an emphatically blustery drag where horns jacket the verses. A studio take of the song showed up that same year on vinyl via 1977’s King Size; under the cool, French autumnal air, the performance here stretches out to nearly double the length. Afterwards, rhythm guitarist Milton Hopkins gets to take a bow for his extended lyrical solo that sets up King’s storming windup. Such onstage roominess keeps occurring elsewhere during the set, finding space here and there for each band member to get in their licks. Just like, for instance, how the familiar fast chop of “Why I Sing the Blues” acknowledges the bulldozing bass as well as the organ aria. A thundering drum solo is also housed within.
“I Got Some Outside Help (I Don’t Really Need)” is another slow one. Even more so. Except the aching complaint here is about someone who keeps getting caught playing dirty pool at home. The indictment builds like a fever: gradually but steadily climbing under a guitar’s growing discontent; peaking with blaring saxophones; then breaking and falling; only to repeat the cycle until King has fully voiced his displeasure at the top of his lungs.
“The Thrill Is Gone” arrives at the midway point. Yes, that minor-key masterpiece which burned a hole through 1970: climbing high up the Billboard charts, earning the Grammy Award, and rocketing to the tip-top slot of fandom’s favorites. Here, stripped of its studio lushness, the same classic kiss-off is notably bare, guttier, rawer. Horns now offer a little cushion, but nowhere near as soft and pillowy as swells of strings sugaring the hurt. Plus, when his voice booms for emphasis, much more gravel gets kicked up in his throat. The agony and eventual ecstasy that comes with giving a withered relationship the heave-ho plays out for nearly seven minutes. This one hits closer to the raw nerve.
Then, all eight upshift into “I Need My Baby.” The group frenzy grows so propulsive as to totally disregard any need for interrupting the brisk interplay for the sake of singing. Heartbeats keep racing while soloists keep tearing off chunks. “Sweet Sixteen” quietens everyone back down, right from that opening lick with the big, bent note. After his signature vibrato technique vigorously shakes and shivers every knotty cluster of notes strung throughout that Top 10 R&B hit, King exits the stage.
Thankfully, the audience cheers him back for an encore. Three bonus songs, in fact. “To Know You Is to Love You,” nicked from Stevie Wonder and his ex-wife Syreeta, lives as a brassy sort of heads-down funk. Matching its hardened resolve, Lucille’s tone is bold and steely. But for her devotees, the payoff comes with “When I’m Wrong” and “Have Faith,” a pair of guitar-centric instrumentals. Pooled together, the spotlight remains on the drama built from milking all the tension out of extendedly held notes or capping off long searing cries with high, hanging notes for 12 combined minutes.
Oh, what a night.
Label: Deep Digs
Release Date: 11/29/24 (LP) or 12/6/24 (CD)
Artist Website: bbking.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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