Consumer Guide Album

B.B. King: Live in Cook County Jail [ABC, 1971]
This begins inauspiciously, with introductions and a thrown-away "Every Day I Have the Blues" (compare Live at the Regal and weep), and ends dubiously, with the sappy show-closer "Please Accept My Love." In between B.B. socks home old hits as familiar as "Sweet Sixteen" and as worthy as "Darlin' You Know I Love You" with a tough intensity he rarely brings to the studio. I prefer the horn arrangements on the Kent originals, but the unpredictable grit with which he snaps off the guitar parts makes up for any lost subtlety. A-