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Monday, August 3, 2009

Albert King: Thursday Night In San Francisco


ALBERT KING: THURSDAY NIGHT IN SAN FRANCISCO (1968/1990)

1) San-Ho-Zay; 2) You Upset Me Baby; 3) Call It Stormy Monday; 4) Every Day I Have The Blues; 5) Drifting Blues; 6) I've Made Nights By Myself; 7) Crosscut Saw; 8) I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town; 9) Ooh-Ee-Baby.

It is not very hard to guess that this album does not deserve an independent review. All I can say is that, perhaps, it is quite a rational decision to market King's performances as a set of three in­dependent records, rather than lump them all together into a deluxe 3-CD set to be sold at exorbi­tant prices. I seriously doubt that even a dedicated fan will be able to sit through all three discs in a row without developing a chronic syndrome of déjà vu. Even if they are so very careful to pick all the right tracks so there's no overlap with the preceding two records, all the licks are still the same — after a short while, you can start predicting the near-exact phrase Albert is gonna pick out after a particular verse.

But it is worth a little bit of money, at least, to hear the King say a touching goodbye to his Fill­more audiences at the end of 'Ooh-Ee-Baby' — "it'll be October before I can get back, got to go back East, I wish I could take everybody from San Francisco with me, mighty mighty groovy people". It's easy to get tired of the repetitive guitar playing, perhaps, but it is impossible to get tired of the charisma. Nice guy all around.

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