Albert King
Club Foot, April 16, 1982
Standing alone in the shadows outside the flood of stage lights, his huge frame cast amidst thick clouds of smoke billowing from his long-sloped pipe, Albert King evokes an eerie image indeed. But once front and center, King’s commanding presence as a blues shaman was unquestionable as he rang out cascades of spine-tingling blues notes from his Flying-V guitar upon an entranced Club Foot crowd. Whether playing funky dance tunes like “Oh, Pretty Woman” and “Cadillac Assembly Line,” or after-hour dirges like “Years Gone By” and “The Sky Is Crying,” King’s unmistakable sound and bare-fingered picking is rife with an intensity that is unrelenting. But what sets King aside from hundreds of other blues guitarists is his uncanny ability to play the blues soft and ever-so-sweet. It’s the quality that separates the men from the boys, and it is this virtue that makes Albert King one of the finest bluesmen alive.This article appears in Lost Austin I.