''Live at the Regal'' is a 1965 live album by American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist and singer

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...

. It was recorded on November 21, 1964, at the Regal Theater in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The album is widely heralded as one of the greatest blues albums ever recorded and was ranked at number 141 in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''s 2003 edition of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, before dropping to number 299 in a 2020 revision. In 2005, ''Live at the Regal'' was selected for permanent preservation in the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservati ...

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

in the United States. Some musicians, including

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is often regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s list of ...

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Mayer attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but left and moved to Atlanta in 1997 with ...

and

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Born in Scotland and raised in England, he was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits. He pursued a s ...

, have acknowledged using this album as a primer before performances. The album was included in

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in '' Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981)—and in Robert Dimery's ''

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'' is a musical reference book first published in 2005 by Universe Publishing. Part of the ''1001 Before You Die'' series, it compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics ...

''.^ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. . It was voted number 604 in

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along wit ...

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by the ...

3rd Edition (2000). In the same book it was number 6 in the Top 50 Blues albums of All-Time.

Recording

''Live at the Regal'' was recorded on November 21, 1964, at the Regal Theater in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, a venue King claimed to have played at "hundreds of times before". King's backing band consisted of: Duke Jethro on the piano, Leo Lauchie on the bass, Kenneth Sands on the trumpet, Johnny Board and Bobby Forte on the tenor saxes, and Sonny Freeman on the drums. Jethro was originally scheduled to play the organ, but after his organ broke, King instructed Jethro to play the piano. When Jethro said he did not know how to play the piano, King replied "Well, just sit there and pretend — that's what you do most of the time anyway!"

Track listing

Side one #"

Every Day I Have the Blues "Every Day I Have the Blues" is a blues song that has been performed in a variety of styles. An early version of the song is attributed to Pinetop Sparks and his brother Milton. It was first performed in the taverns of St. Louis by the Sparks ...

" (

Memphis Slim John Len Chatman (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988), known professionally as Memphis Slim, was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxopho ...

) – 2:38 #"

Sweet Little Angel Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones, ...

" ( Riley King, Jules Taub) – 4:12 #"It's My Own Fault" (

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

) – 3:29 #"

How Blue Can You Get "How Blue Can You Get" (alternatively "Downhearted") is a blues song first recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers in 1949. It is a slow 12-bar blues that jazz critic Leonard Feather and his wife, Jane Feather, are credited with writing. The so ...

" (Jane Feather) – 3:44 #"Please Love Me" (King, Jules Taub) – 3:01 Side two #"You Upset Me Baby" (

Joe Josea The Bihari brothers, Lester, Jules, Saul and Joe, were American businessmen of Hungarian Jewish origins. They were the founders of Modern Records in Los Angeles and its subsidiaries, such as Meteor Records, based in Memphis. The Bihari brothers we ...

Maxwell Davis Thomas Maxwell Davis, Jr. (January 14, 1916 – September 18, 1970), was an American rhythm and blues saxophonist, arranger, bandleader and record producer. Biography Davis was born in Independence, Kansas in 1916. In 1937, he moved to Lo ...

) – 2:22 #"Worry, Worry" (Davis Plumber, Taub) – 6:24 #"Woke Up This Mornin (King) – 1:45 #"You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now" (King, Josea) – 4:16 #"Help the Poor" ( Charlie Singleton) – 2:58

Personnel

*B.B. King guitar, vocals *Leo Lauchie bass *Duke Jethro piano *Sonny Freeman drums *Bobby Forte, Johnny Board tenor saxophone *Kenny "Kenneth" Sands trumpet *E. Rodney Jones, Pervis Spann presenters Technical *Ron Steele Sr. recording engineer *Don Bronstein cover

Charts

References

{{Authority control 1965 live albums ABC Records live albums Albums produced by Johnny Pate Albums recorded at the Regal Theater, Chicago B.B. King live albums MCA Records live albums United States National Recording Registry recordings United States National Recording Registry albums