Freddie King

Freddie King

Freddie King, often described as a leading contender for the title “King of modern guitar blues,” has had to make it the hard way. He was a Muddy Waters protege at age 16, a regular in the tough Chicago blues scene by the time he was 20, and possessor of a string of hit records while still in his twenties. Then he languished in relative obscurity for almost a decade. He was a blues legend and a strong influence on a generation of young blues and rock guitarists, but public popularity eluded him. All that has changed drastically in the last two years but success hasn’t caused him to forget how he got to where he is.

“Blues is the music I was born with and I grew up in the blues,” King recalls. He was born September 3,1934, in Gilmer, a small town in East Texas. His was “a blues family,” he remembers. His mother and uncles played blues and Freddie had a guitar by the time he was five. He grew up listening to records by such bluesmen as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Big Bill Broonzy. He also listened to Louis Jordan, whom he cites as an influence.

His family moved to Chicago in the 1940’s and they happened to live next door to the Zanzibar Club, where Muddy Waters was playing. King vividly recalls that when he was 16 he would sneak into the Zanzibar (with Waters’ help) and sit by the bandstand, watching and learning from the giants of Chicago blues.

He started working as a sideman and joined Little Sonny Cooper’s band at age 19. The next year he worked with the Blues Cats, led by Earl Payton, and he also backed Lavern Baker, Little Sonny Scott and Memphis Slim. As his remarkable fluid playing style coalesced, King organized his own band and was recording for the El-Bee label by 1956. The Chicago years were the formative ones for him musically and his style developed into what he calls a cross between a “Muddy and a T-Bone and a B.B. style, right in there.”

Hal1 Neely signed him for King Records in 1960 and his first single on that label, “Love Here With a Feelin’,” was a hit the next year. His first King album appeared in 1961 and Freddie King began a series of memorable recordings: “Hideaway,” “San-Ho-Zay,” “I’m Tore Down,” “The Stumble,” “Side Tracked,” and many others.

Then, in the early Sixties he moved to Dallas and less was heard from him. He continued playing and recording and cut two albums for Cotillion in the mid-1960’s with King Curtis producing.

Wide popularity continued to evade him until 1971 when Getting Ready, his first Shelter album, appeared. It was acclaimed as a classic of contemporary blues and his second Shelter LP, Texas Cannonball, firmly established the Texas guitarist as a master bluesman.

He’s played rock festivals now, and the Fillmore, but Freddie still remembers Red’s Playmore Lounge in Chicago where, one night in 1951, he earned $8 in his first paying job. Those were rough days and it was from such days that he earned and retained his feeling for the blues. His blues is the same, he says, it’s just that now people are starting to listen.

Chet Flippo