Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Coffee-table book examines the treasures of a blues King
Waterman, who has been writing about and photographing musicians since the 1950s, has known King since 1963. But when he started to work on "The B.B. King Treasures: Photos, Mementos & Music B.B. King's Collection" (Bullfinch, $40), Waterman still found things about King that surprised him.
"Although I knew that he had motivation and concentration and an amazing work ethic," Waterman says, "all of those things just paled by comparison when I actually found out how intense these qualities are in him. He has an amazing quest for self-improvement, which continues on."
"The B.B. King Treasures" is a gorgeously packaged coffee table book that includes, as the title states, treasures: Eight sleeves filled with facsimiles of King memorabilia, including tickets, posters, a tour itinerary, a program from a show in London and even a business card with contact information and the simple description, "B.B. King/A.B.C. Recording Artist."
The book also sketches his career from his birth as Riley King on Sept. 16, 1925, in Berclair, Miss., through his days on the chitlin' circuit to the fame that would finally find him the 1960s.
While King is acknowledged as one of the foremost and most influential musicians of the 20th century, Waterman does not put him in the same group as Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters.
Not because King isn't worthy of comparison, but because his milieu is different than the music that surrounded his childhood home in the Mississippi Delta. Instead, King was inspired by the musicians he heard on his Aunt Mina's wind-up Victrola.
"B.B. has always made his music with horns," Waterman says, noting that even King's earliest recordings, done on a shoestring budgets, included horn sections. "I think that B.B. is in no way a descendant of the Charlie Patton-Son House-Muddy Waters-Robert Johnson-Elmore James-Jimmy Reed tradition. Although it was not far from him geographically, B.B. has none of those musical influences in his music. If you actually stand back and look at it, he was influenced by Lonnie Johnson from Louisiana, Blind Lemon Jefferson from Texas, Louis Jordan from Arkansas, Charlie Christian from the Benny Goodman Band and Django Reinhardt from Europe. ... B.B. is sort of a product of his aunt's record collection."
One of the most interesting sections of "Treasures" describes King's pivotal appearance at the Fillmore Auditorium -- before it was called the Fillmore West -- in San Francisco on Feb. 26, 1967. For Carlos Santana and Steve Miller, it was one of the most moving moments they'd ever witnessed.
Until then, King felt he'd been playing at a "high level without having the recognition," Waterman says. When King's bus pulled up to the Fillmore that night and he saw the line queued around the building, he thought he was at the wrong venue; promoter Bill Graham had to convince King the audience was there to hear him.
Still, King was unprepared for the reception he received.
"As he stepped forward with the guitar, the standing ovation just drove him back," Waterman says. "As he stepped forward a second time, the standing ovation him drove him back again. As both Carlos Santana and Steve Miller both observed, he had tears in his eyes. B.B. himself said he was overcome. He didn't know what he had done to deserve this, and the fact remains that the white hippies from that period were running ahead of the curve. They knew what was hip."
Waterman was also present the night King received his Kennedy Center Honor, and asked the musician how he felt. King, in typical fashion, merely replied that it was a great honor. Waterman prodded King again, and he replied the same way. King, Waterman says, has been interviewed for almost 50 years and the questions remain the same, as do the answers.
But Waterman persisted, and finally broke through King's veneer of acceptance.
"He said 'What have I done to deserve this?'" Waterman says. "Sometimes people tell you should get something, you could get something, you might get something, you deserve something. But somebody's got their hand on you, pushing you back. Finally, he had gotten some thing, something that B.B. had earned. But I don't think he himself knows why. In other words, why me, why not Jimmy Reed, or Louis Jordan? I think he leaves that up to the people who write about him."
Katrina relief efforts
Musicians, as usual, have been rallying to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, from last week's A Concert for Hurricane Relief on NBC to similar efforts by BET, MTV and the Farm Aid organization. But less prominent musicians are also pitching in, including a couple with local ties:
Capsule reviews
"Bigger Bang" (EMI), The Rolling Stones
"Bigger Bang" falls a bit short of being a great Rolling Stones record. But after years of paint-by-number efforts, it's by far the best Stones release since 1981's "Tattoo You." There are moments so sublime that it's easy to think the devil has finally returned in kind a sympathetic gesture -- "Bigger Bang" does not at all sound like a band whose best studio moments are nearly quarter century past.
And it's all because of Mick Jagger, whose fingerprints are all over every song. He plays guitar or bass -- and sometimes both -- on every track, and you can hear the snottiness of years, even decades, gone by in the lyrics for "Rough Justice" and "Oh Not You Again."
But it's the music, and specifically, the guitars, that makes "Bigger Bang" such a revelation. To hear Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood blazing away like desperadoes backed into a corner on "It Won't Take Long" "She Saw Me Coming" and the politically potent "Sweet Neo Con" recalls the '70s glory of "Exile on Main Street" and "Sticky Fingers." And as always Charlie Watts is the perfect drummer, never overplaying, his restraint and marvelous shaping of the music a primer for anyone who's ever sat behind a drumkit.
It's not a perfect record; Jagger's lyrics can be maddeningly puerile at times, as in "Dangerous Beauty." And Keith Richards' moments in the spotlight, the midtempo "Infamy" and "This Place is Empty," are ordinary at best.
But most of "Bigger Bang" is just that -- the Stones' most explosive album in years. Three and 1/2 stars (out of five)
"Back Home" (Reprise), Eric Clapton
The blissful family portrait in the CD booklet for Eric Clapton's first album of new material in seven years is nice, cute even.
Nice is good for family, and so is cute, but no so nice for the music. "Back Home" is an ordinary album by an extraordinary musician, a disappointment for anyone who ever played air guitar along with "Layla" or even grooved a bit to "461 Ocean Boulevard." The music is oh so middle-of-the-road, which is not necessarily bad if it's Burt Bacharach or Jimmy Webb. But "Back Home" is more along the lines of Christopher Cross, with just hints of Clapton's talents seeping through with the occasional guitar lick or reggae lilt, as in the ironically titled "Revolution," which is anything but as it's titled.
No one expects Clapton to reprise Derek & the Dominoes or Cream at the age of 60; but it's sad to hear him settle for material that's so far beneath his grasp. One and 1/2 stars
More Pop Soundboard headlines
- Instant celebrities don't need to hone their talents
- New venues could bring in more concerts
- Summer concerts looking like reunion season
- The demise of the album is a sign of the times
- Commercial rock sells product, not art
- Corporate sponsorship doesn't mean a band has sold out
- Iconic rock journalist was in the right place at the right time
