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80
B. B. King
Geffen Records (602498842461)
(Release date: September 13, 2005)
- Early In The Morning (with Van Morrison)
- Tired Of Your Jive (with Billy Gibbons)
- The Thrill Is Gone (with Eric Clapton)
- Need Your Love So Bad (with Sheryl Crow)
- Ain't Nobody Home (with Darryl Hall & John Oates)
- Hummingbird (with John Mayer)
- All Over Again (with Mark Knopfler)
- Drivin' Wheel (with Glenn Frey)
- There Must Be A Better World Somewhere (with Gloria Estefan)
- Never Make Your Move Too Soon (with Roger Daltrey)
- Funny How Time Slips Away (with Bobby Bland)
- Rock This House (with Elton John)
Review by Jim Abbott:
It's a big challenge to play a duet with B.B. King. The King of the Blues
casts an imposing musical shadow that makes it hard
for mere pop stars to shine. His booming voice ranges effortlessly from
comic to sad, and his distinctive, stinging guitar style has a wonderfully
expressive sound of its own.
To throw someone else into the mix, unless it happens to be Bono and U2 on their classic 1988 collaboration "When Love Comes to Town," is to risk messing with a good thing.
Fortunately, it is King's commanding presence, not the star power of his A-list collaborators, which defines 80, a new collection of duets.
The title is a reference to King's upcoming milestone birthday, which falls on Friday. With his diabetes and aching joints, afflictions that he has managed to jokingly incorporate into his act, King might be forgiven for coasting on new albums at this point in his long career.
Instead, it's up to his younger guests to keep up.
That's not a problem for Van Morrison, who is tailor-made for the album's swaggering opener, "Early in the Morning." It's a testament to Morrison's talent that he takes the opening verse, blowing harp and barking out the hard-luck lyrics with conviction. That sets the bar pretty high for the rest of the album, but 80 delivers admirably.
There are a few obvious slam-dunks: Eric Clapton handles the simmering guitar solos on "The Thrill Is Gone" with a perfect mixture of fire and restraint. It's nice that he lets King handle the vocals alone because no one else could do them better.
King teams with blues veteran Bobby "Blue" Bland for a another highlight, a laid-back country stroll through "Funny How Time Slips Away." Bland's warm, understated vocals, punctuated by King's spoken asides, make the song sound like an intimate after-hours jam.
It's not surprising that the songs with Clapton, Bland, Mark Knopfler ("All Over Again'') and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons ("Tired of Your Jive'') work so well. The revelation on 80 is that King fits so many of the unlikely collaborators into the blues.
Daryl Hall exudes enough personality and blue-eyed soul to match King's considerable charisma on "Ain't Nobody Home," a reminder that all those Hall & Oates hits weren't flukes. And Roger Daltrey sounds reborn by the blues on "Never Make Your Move Too Soon." Elton John slips back into "Crocodile Rock" mode for the closer, "Rock This House," which rumbles through its three-chord boogie-woogie with plenty of barrelhouse piano and walking bass lines.
Not everything works, but even an overly sweet ballad with John Mayer ("Hummingbird'') and an ill-conceived vocal combination with Gloria Estefan ("There Must Be a Better World Somewhere'') can't dim the master's brilliance.
On 80, King shows that he's not getting older, only better.
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