Staff Book and Media Recommendations

Riding with the King: BB King and Eric Clapton

B.B. King has been making his guitar Lucille sing before I was born, and that's saying something. Eric Clapton has been everything from a rocker to a folk artist, but he has earned the right to the blues from personal experience. Clapton's voice isn't ragged and ruined enough for a good blues voice, but King's voice makes up for it, and the give-and-take guitar riffs are better than both their voices combined.

This album is a good mix of styles. Some tracks are pure Leadbelly wail and have the expected cadence of repeated lines and an emphatic ending phrase; others have new jazz influence. One track has the gentle oscillating thrum of an old Wurlitzer organ, and the next is a bawdy song with a sock-hop tempo. Their rendition of Johnny Mercer's "Come Rain or Come Shine" doesn't outshine Billie Holiday or Ray Charles (or even Mary J. Blige at RC's Tribute Concert), but again, the guitars save them.

In case you need more convincing, this collaboration won the 2001 Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. The best part about blues is that when the music gets upbeat again, all of us who have been along for the journey know we've earned the dance. ~Abbey Warner

Reviewed November 2009