Albert King was one of the “3 Kings” of the blues guitar. Nobody played like him, and his unique style produced a sound that Jimi, Stevie Ray, Eric, Derek, Warren, and Joe all aspired to.
He was born Albert Nelson in Indianola, MS, yet another self-taught son of a cotton farmer who himself could play a lick on the guitar. And, how many guitar greats started on homemade cigar box rigs before scraping up a couple of bucks for an acoustic guitar. Albert was another. But, what made Albert play differently and sound different was something sinister. No, it wasn’t anything evil, or traded for at the crossroads. It was literally sinister. Albert was left-handed. Like many left-handed players, he flipped a right-handed guitar over to play. But, instead of re-stringing to get a standard set-up, Albert left the strings right where they were, bass strings below the treble strings. Albert could bend those strings like few others, and did that in his own way, too – pulling them down with his big mitts, not pushing up like everyone else does. To top it all off, he open tuned his guitar 2 full steps low.
The result was an instantly recognizable guitar wail, played at a lower pitch than most blues solos. Albert’s riffs were pure and melodic, and married well with his smooth honey-toned voice. Albert was a big man, at least 6’4” and 250 lbs., played a Flying V guitar he called “Lucy” and often smoked a pipe while playing. His nickname was “The Velvet Bulldozer.”
Asked by Rolling Stone who his guitar influences were, Albert famously said “Nobody. Everything I do is wrong.” Still, he grew up listening to and learning from Lonnie Johnson, T-Bone Walker and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Albert adopted B.B. King’s last name. They were both from Indianola, MS, and Albert claimed to be related somehow. He jokingly referred to himself as B.B.’s brother. Albert, B.B., and Freddie King became known as the “3 Kings of Blues Guitar.” Their influence on rock guitarists is hard to overstate. Stevie Ray Vaughan cited Albert as his biggest influence. Eric Clapton channeled Albert during his Cream days, and admittedly lifted Albert’s solo from “Personal Assistant” for “Strange Brew” and Duane Allman turned the melody in Albert’s “As the Years Go Passing By” into the main riff for “Layla.”
Most of Albert’s big hits were recorded in the late 60s at Stax Records in Memphis, TN, with the incomparable backing of Booker T. and the MG’s (Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, et al.). He is best known for “I’ll Play the Blues for You” “Born Under a Bad Sign” “Crosscut Saw” “Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong” and “As the Years Go Passing By.”
Albert is on everybody’s list of the greatest guitar players of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the rock HOF in 2013.
