ALBER KING

Albert Nelson was born in Indianola, Mississippi on April 25th, 1923 to Mary Blevins, a church singer, and became the stepson of a preacher named Will Nelson. Soon after, the couple and their thirteen children moved to Forrest City, Arkansas and began working on a plantation there. As a child, Albert taught himself to play a “Diddley Bow” which he constructed by taking a piece of bailing wire and attaching one end to a nail in the barn wall and the other to a stake in the ground. By the time he was six, he had graduated to a guitar he made out of a cigar box. Albert bought his first real guitar for $1.25 at the age of eighteen from a friend. Being left-handed, he held the guitar backwards and learned to finger his chords upside down. Having taught him-self, he also favored an odd, slackened, C minor tuning.

Throughout his late teens and twenties, he played with mostly gospel groups until he was introduced to the blues in the mid forties. By 1950, Albert had secured his first job as a bluesman in a band known as the “In the Groove Boys” after moving to Osceola Arkansas. Though he was gaining some notoriety as a musician, he still worked his day job operating a bulldozer during the day to help pay the bills. He’d often remark that he was so good at it, he could “pick up a carpet without scratching the floor”, his greatest gift, however, was still being developed after work at clubs such as MC Reeder’s T-99 and on local radio.

Riding high on his success in Arkansas, Albert moved to Gary Indiana in 1953 where he joined a band that included Jimmy Reed and John Brim. Since they all played guitar, Albert became the drummer. It was during this time that Albert adopted the name “King” which he borrowed directly from B.B. King, who was enjoying some major success due to his hit “Three O’clock Blues”. Soon after arriving in Gary, Albert met Willie Dixon who urged him to audition at Parrot Records. He cut his first tracks there before year’s end, though only one song, “Be On Your Merry Way” was ever released. The record sold fairly well but not enough to earn him another session with Parrot, so he returned to Osceola and the In The Groove Boys. He stayed for two more years.

In 1956, Albert set out again and this time found himself in St. Louis, Missouri. After only a few short months of sitting in with local bands, he was headlining at several clubs in the city. It was here Albert started playing “Lucy”, his famous counterpart- a custom made flying V which he named to reflect it’s personality. Like a ventriloquist, he used the guitar as an alter-ego, developing a guitar style that would encompass her bawdy but sweet voice.

Within a few years, King had signed with Bobbin Records, gaining a national hit with “Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong”. In 1966, Albert found a new home at an up and coming R&B label known as Stax after meeting the owner, Estelle Axton, in a record shop. Since Stax had already built a name as an R&B house, she initially met some resistance from her partner and staff. However, she convinced them that he should record the song “Laundromat Blues”, which she had acquired earlier. As with all of his Stax recordings, Albert cut the song with the label’s house band, Booker T & the MGs. Their sleek soul grooves blended perfectly with King’s liquid style, creating great crossover appeal.

By the end of the next year, Albert King was nationally known, having recorded such monumental hits as “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “Cross Cut Saw”. His influential style was picked up by the new generation of blues-rockers in England, such as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Jimi Hendrix and by early 1968, he found himself playing not only to blues audiences, but opening for rock acts at venues like the Filmore West in San Francisco.

Throughout the seventies, King enjoyed some success, though nothing compared to his early days at Stax. He left the label midway through the decade and recorded on and off over the next several years at various labels. After a short-lived retirement in the mid eighties, He continued to tour, playing concerts and festivals across America and Europe.

Albert King succumbed to a major heart attack while on tour, December 21st, 1992. His influence in modern rock and blues, however, will most likely ripple through many generations of players for many years to come.

Watch for an Albert King lesson coming soon!