If you’re a fan of the blues, you should pay attention to two categories on the Best Live Albums Blog – blues (where you are) and Blues Rock.
I wasn’t originally expecting to have two categories for the original blues singers and for the rock music strongly influenced by the blues but the more I tried to categorise live albums, the more it became helpful.
Let’s deal with a sensitive issue.
Is there a racial issue here? Many of the blues artists are black, many of the blues rock artists are white.
Can a white man play the blues?
Yes he can but the common tendency is to reduce the emphasis on the feelings in the blues songs and rock out and show off instrumental prowess.
Cream are blues rock, some of the later work by Eric Clapton I might be classing as blues.
I believe live albums are the natural setting for the blues rather than a sterile studio setting where it’s harder to find the right emotions.
The blues has its originals in the late 19th century and early 20th century and which, when combined with the fact that many blues artists often mature well with age, make its history and influences harder to define than many forms of rock and pop music.
To help understand the development, I’ve a post on the history of the blues through the birth, deaths and careers of the major blues artists.
Blues Live Albums By Decade – 1960s – 1970s – 1980s – 1990s – 2000s – 2010s
Live blues albums include:
Bobby Bland and BB King Together Again Live 1976
Eric Clapton Unplugged 1992
Gary Clark Jr Live 2013
Albert Collins – Frozen Alive 1981
Buddy Guy Live At The Checkerboard Lounge 1979
Buddy Guy Live! The Real Deal 1996
Buddy Guy Live At Legends 2010
Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Live In Montreux 1974
John Lee Hooker Live At The Café Au Go-Go 1966 & 1972
Etta James – Rocks The House 1963
Albert King Live Wire Blues Power 1968
Albert King Wednesday Night In San Francisco 1968
Albert King Thursday Night In San Francisco 1968
BB King Live at the Regal 1964
BB King Live & Well 1969
BB King Live In Cook County Jail 1970
BB King Live In Japan 1971
BB King Now Appearing At Ole Miss 1979
BB King Live At The Apollo 1990
BB King Live At San Quentin 1990
BB King & Bobby Bland Together For The First Time Live 1974
Freddie King Live At The Electric Ballroom 1974
John Mayall The Turning Point 1969
John Mayall Jazz Blues Fusion 1971
John Mayall 70th Birthday Concert 2003
Van Morrison – It’s Too Late To Stop Now 1973
Hound Dog Taylor Beware Of The Dog 1974
Muddy Waters At Newport 1960
Sonny Boy Williamson & The Yardbirds Live In London 1963
Howlin’ Wolf Live & Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited
What Are The Best Live Blues Albums?
To help you to find the best live albums in these categories I have two readers polls you should look at and vote in:
Best Blues Albums
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Live Wire Blues Power is a live album by bluesman Albert King. It was recorded in June 1968 at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
This concert has provided material for two more Albert King live albums:
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What are the very best blues rock live albums ever? Please vote in my poll and we’ll find out.
Until you try to define the boundaries of a category like this, you don’t realise how hard it is to say Yes to one live act but No to another. There are a lot of grey areas. Continue reading What Are The Best Blues Rock Live Albums?
What are the best live blues albums?
I’m not sure whether I’m complicating or simplifying this choice but I’ve created two categories for live albums based on the blues:
If you love the blues and blues inspired rock, I’d very much like it if you could vote in both best live album polls.
I believe these live recordings capture the intensity of the blues better than the sterile studio recordings. I think the artists tend to be inspired by the enthusiastic response of the audience.
Since I ask for the live albums you think represent the best of the blues, I think it’s only fair that I share my personal favourites.
The way I approach my selection is to assume I’m stranded on a desert island but I’m allowed to select five live albums from each genre. This means that some crossover albums can get selected in the easier of the genres.
I was introduced to the blues through the English blues rock bands of the 1960s – Eric Clapton and Cream, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac and The Rolling Stones. I wanted to understand what influenced them.
An obvious starting point is BB King. For the popular mainstream, he is Mr Blues and probably by far the best known of the great bluesmen.
Live At The Regal is terrific but it’s a bit short. I love it when I play it but I don’t play it very often. Live In Japan is longer is a fine album. Live In Cook County Jail has plenty to recommend it too but I’m not sure a BB King album is going to make the list.
I can’t believe I’ve written that last sentence so don’t be surprised if I come back and change my mind.
Then there are his “brothers”, Albert and Freddie to consider. Yes I know that they are not really his brothers but it’s always struck me as odd that three of the best known (and best) blues guitarists are called King.
Albert King was HOT when he got to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in June 1968. These concerts give us Live Wire / Blues Power together with Wednesday Night and Thursday Night In San Francisco. I wish the record company would bundle all three together. Albert has released several other fine live albums. Again I’m not sure that any will make my desert island selection of five.
Someone who will definitely feature is Luther Allison. He is my favourite blues singer and guitarist and it’s a shame he wasn’t better known during his life. Gradually more people are discovering his music.
There are two of his albums I instinctively turn to when I feel like the blues and I haven’t been pointed at another artist – Where Have You Been? Live In Montreux 1976 – 1994 and Live In Chicago from 1995.
I can’t live without either of them so they are the first two to make my desert island selection.
Chicago blues dominate my blues album collection so it’s appropriate to think about the man who links the traditional Mississippi sound to the development of urban blues, Muddy Waters.
An obvious album is Muddy Waters At Newport from 1960. Even though it has been extended in 2001, it’s still too short. This matters to me on my desert island because I can’t afford to get tired of any of the albums, especially as my listening goes in phases. When I listen to the blues, I only want to listen to the blues.
In the late 1970s, Waters found popularity again with the studio album Hard Again and the album I’m selecting is the expanded version of Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live.
Three down, two to find.
I’m having quite a lot of trouble narrowing them down and I have most of the albums included in the best live blues album poll in my collection along with a few others.
I think one is going to be “guitar intensive” whilst the other is probably going to be one of the more subtle “old fashioned” blues albums. People in contention include Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and Son Seals.
To be continued.
Frozen Alive is a live recording of an Albert Collins gig from 1981.
According to Wikipedia he was quite a character live:
“…he would frequently come down from the stage, attached to his amplifier with a very long cord, and mingle with the audience whilst still playing.He was known to leave clubs while still playing, and continue to play outside on the sidewalk, even boarding a city bus in Chicago while playing, outside of a club called Biddy Mulligan’s (the bus driver stayed at the bus stop until Collins got off).
He sounds quite a character.
If you like your blues live, you should hear it.
Continue reading Albert Collins Frozen Alive 1981It’s Too Late To Stop Now is the first live album by Van Morrison.
It was recorded in 1973 and it catches him paying his dues to his influences.
It collects the best of the tracks from concerts at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and at The Rainbow in London between May and July 1973.
It’s difficult to categorise an album like this – is it rock, soul or blues? It even has a jazzy feel to it.
This amalgamation of styles is what makes Van Morrison such a special artist and he had a golden period in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he made some of the greatest music ever recorded. Astral Weeks, Moondance and St Dominic’s Preview are amongst my most favourite studio albums and I believe that each is essential.
Which is the best? Well that keeps on changing depending on my mood but St Dominic’s Preview fits neatly between the others in style.
In 2008, a bonus track was added – a live version of Brown Eyed Girl.
My Rating – 28/30
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Continue reading Van Morrison It’s Too Late To Stop Now 1973
BB King recorded Live At the Regal in 1964 in Chicago and created one of the most famous and well regarded blues albums.
If you have an interest in the blues from rock artists like Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin and you want to delve back into the original masters, Live At The Regal is a great place to start.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 – this is one of the best live albums ever released
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