BB King - One Kind Favor

King reclaims his crown on his best in years

Ace roots music producer T-Bone Burnett brings the 82 year-old bluesman full circle with this all-covers project that has the still-potent guitarist and vocalist revisiting the influential barrelhouse Memphis blues sounds of his youth. Recorded at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles, …Favor has a decidedly vintage 50s feeling to it, with Burnett employing the kind of take-no-prisoners band and horn section that King led back then (including Dr John on piano, drummer Jim Keltner and acoustic bassist Nathan East), while encouraging him to play plenty of his trademark single-note run splattered guitar.

The song choices are all outstanding, particularly the trio by his venerated idol Lonnie Johnson – a gripping My Love Is Down, the lengthy, emotionally bracing Backwater Blues (with euphonium and horns arranged by Geoff Muldaur) and a laidback yet magisterial redo of Johnson’s chart-topping smash Tomorrow Night. Other gems that, likewise, give King lots of room for his road-weary, half-shouted vocals and bent-note adorned guitar work include reworkings of Walker’s dynamic Waiting For Your Call and a pair from the Mississippi Sheiks songbag, a tortured The World Gone Wrong and their classic rumproller Sitting On Top Of The World. All in all, BB’s best in years.

Geffen | 8001179102

Reviewed by Gary von Tersch
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