B.B. King - One Kind Favor Review

Posted by Jesse Coy on 10.23.2008

With more than sixty years of blues to back him up, there's no stopping this King. His newest release is proof of that.

B.B. King
One Kind Favor
August 2008
Geffen Records

Do you listen to the blues because you’re bummed out and want to hear something that makes you feel better, because some poor guy (or gal) has it worse off than you? Or is it more that you each have a similar set of problems, and basically misery loves company? I don’t think I’ve resolved that one. For sure, there’s some lowdown bonding going on between the listener and master craftsman (or blues guru). Maybe I can let it rest at that.

So here we have a debut from a new blues musician, which is quite good…

HA!

Just kidding. This is B.B. King, so what sort of introduction do I need to write? His first name is Riley. Really. You could look that one up. And this is his 24th studio release. I’ll fess up here and confess that the extent of B.B. King in my CD collection is some best of material and also some material on a Blues and Jazz Pioneers collection.

Before I get into the individual songs, my overall impression of the album, coming from someone who listens to many genres of music (hell, my last pair of reviews ranged from Megadeth to Tina Turner) is that the material on this release has a timeless quality. It’s obviously rooted in, or more accurately, the definition of blues by one of the blues masters. Yet it sounds neither retro nor updated. One Kind Favor sounds just as new and fresh now, this year of its release, as it would if you transported it to some point in the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s, or 60’s.

And now, onto some tracks…

The opening tune is just great. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” has a more upbeat feel to it, maybe the most on the album, giving it a blues bounce that just carries it along. I find that quite funny, and are we talking irony here, considering that the song’s lyrics are likely the grimmest on the album. Nobody said you couldn’t have blues with humor. As for the longest track, and contrasting the jumping blues tempo above, there’s “Backwater Blues,” which clocks in at 7 and a half minutes, and moves like molasses (really sweet and golden, but really slow) slipping off the side of the plate. You gotta love the sentiment here.

I woke up this morning, and I couldn’t get outta my front door…
I woke up this morning, and I couldn’t get outta my front door.
It was so much trouble, make a poor man wonder why he wanna go.

Instead of having an excuse the next time I can’t make it into work, I need to just send that line in. That explains it all, doesn’t it?

There is, of course, your perfect assemblage of tracks that you’d want to hear playing at an exceptional blues bar over a whiskey on the rocks or ice cold beer, watching the day creep by and reminiscing.

“Sitting On Top of the World,” the tune itself, cares little over the fact that a girl is lost. What does it matter? We’re in blues nirvana here. You have great horn accompaniment, awesome piano work, and the steady chug of blues percussion. Similar comments could be said for “Midnight Blues,” where you get even more the sense of a dark night train chugging along through a balmy Southern landscape, the horns nearly replicating a train horn sound at times.

“Waiting for Your Call” really highlights B.B.’s deep wail of blues, the vocals here standing out, while “Blues Before Sunrise” has the guitar and piano making sad love, unified here in a wonderful way. It’s easy to get slightly poetic talking about this style of music, and the sound you hear from this one. Twelve tracks from a legend who still sounds awesome… hail to the King.

The 411: I'll go out on a limb and guess that those who love B.B. King won't be disappointed. As for the uninitiated, what are you waiting for? You want awesome blues... you got it.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]