Born Under a Bad Sign

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Born Under a Bad Sign
Albert King's studio album

Publication
(s)

August 1967

Label (s) Stax Records

Format (s)

LP

Genre (s)

blues

Title (number)

11

running time

34:19

occupation

production

Jim Stewart

chronology
The Big Blues
(1962) 		Born Under a Bad Sign Live Wire / Blues Power
(1968)

Born Under a Bad Sign is a studio album by the American blues musician Albert King . It is considered to be groundbreaking for the blues rock genre and influenced musicians such as Eric Clapton , Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan . It sold around 500,000 times in the US alone. The music magazine Rolling Stone ranks it 491 on its list of the 500 best albums of all time .

useful information

In 1966, King signed a recording deal with Stax Records . He recorded a number of singles between March 1966 and June 1967 , including Laundromat Blues , Crosscut Saw and Born Under a Bad Sign , which were able to place in the upper midfield of the rhythm and blues single charts. King was supported in the recordings by the band Booker T. & the MG's , which at the time was the house band of the Stax Records label and was responsible for the rhythmic and melodic background music for the pieces. King was also accompanied by the Memphis Horns , a brass section that acted as a backing band for Stax Records .

In August 1967 these single recordings were released as a studio album under the title Born Under a Bad Sign . It did not make it into the album charts, which is attributed to the fact that the record market in this genre was dominated by singles until the 1970s. The title track is considered particularly influential. The Blues ballad written Booker T. Jones and William Bell. The idea came from Bell, who wanted to write a blues song about astrology . The main riff of the piece came about by chance. In keeping with the astrological background of the title song, the record cover shows various symbols from superstition such as the calendar sheet of a Friday the 13th, a black cat and a skull.

Track list

  1. Born Under a Bad Sign (Bell, Jones ) - 2:47
  2. Crosscut Saw (Ford) - 2:35
  3. Kansas City ( Leiber , Rodgers, Stoller ) - 2:33
  4. Oh, Pretty Woman (Williams) - 2:48
  5. Down Don't Bother Me (King) - 2:10
  6. The Hunter ( Cropper , Dunn , Jackson, Jones, Wells) - 2:45
  7. I Almost Lost My Mind ( Hunter ) - 3:30
  8. Personal Manager (King, Porter) - 4:31
  9. Laundromat Blues (Jones) - 3:21
  10. As the Years Go Passing By (King, Malone ) - 3:48
  11. The Very Thought of You ( Noble ) - 3:46

reception

Despite the lack of chart success, the album is one of the classics of blues rock and is referred to as the first electric blues album. Guitar World magazine wrote that King combined his heavily distorted blues rock riffs with the funky rhythms of the backing band in a natural and organic way. Billboard Magazine named pieces like Crosscut Saw , Kansas City and Pretty Woman as definitive blues standards in a contemporary concert review . The Rolling Stone writes that King with this album next to blues fans and listeners in the field of rock 'n' roll could win.

Shortly after its release, the album proved to be a real treasure trove for the young British blues and blues rock bands of the 1960s: In the same year Oh, Pretty Woman was found on John Mayall's LP Crusade (with Mick Taylor on lead Guitar), Free recorded a rocking version of The Hunter for their debut album Tons of Sobs (1968) and Cream covered the title track on their double album Wheels of Fire (1968). And around twenty years later, a new generation of white blues guitarists appreciated the songs on the album, such as Robben Ford , who also recorded Born Under A Bad Sign for his album Talk To Your Daughter in 1988 , or Gary Moore , who was two years old then opened his album Still Got the Blues (1990) with a version of Oh, Pretty Woman recorded together with King , as a further title covered As The Years Go Passing By and King also set a musical memorial with his ballad King of the Blues .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steve Cheseborough: Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues . Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009, ISBN 978-1-60473-124-8 , pp. 53 .
  2. ↑ a b c 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Albert King, 'Born Under a Bad Sign'. Rolling Stone Magazine, accessed March 11, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Joachim P. Brookes: Albert King / Born Under A Bad Sign.rocktimes.de, July 12, 2006, accessed on February 13, 2010 .
  4. ^ A b Rob Bowman: Soulsville, USA: The Story of Stax Records . Music Sales Group, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8256-7284-2 , pp. 126 f .
  5. ↑ Jeff Kitts, Brad Tolinski: Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time from the Pages of Guitar World Magazine . Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002, ISBN 978-0-634-04619-3 , pp. 34 .
  6. ^ Daniel Goldberg: King of the Blues Courts Fans . In: Billboard Magazine . 6th September 1969.
  7. ↑ Milestones in blues history (part 4): Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign . In: bluesnews , 51, October – November 2007, ISSN  0948-5643