Consumer Guide Album

B.B. King: King Size [ABC, 1977]
Old Chess man Esmond Edwards acquits himself with honor--the charts are sharp, the sidemen prime, and most of the songs good ones. But the mildness of the two Muddy Waters covers reminds us that King conceived his style as progressive from Muddy's Delta-Chicago gutbucket, and the segue from "Mother Fuyer," the dirtiest traditional blues in the repertoire, to Bill Withers and Brook Benton is disorienting rather than revelatory. B-