Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel includes: Bobby "Blue" Bland (vocals); B.B. King (vocals, guitar). | | Producers include: Steve Barri, Monk, Higgins, Al Bell, Don Gant, Ron Chancey. | | Compilation producer: Andy McKaie. | | Recorded between 1973 & 1979. Includes liner notes by Bill Dahl. | | Liner Note Author: Bill Dahl. | | Photographer: Frank Driggs. | | Subtitled The ABC-Dunhill/MCA Recordings, this picks up the last tenure of Bobby "Blue" Bland working under the corporate MCA umbrella. With tunes aboard from various albums and singles, this 16-track collection covers the highlights from his 1970s period, with only 1982's "Recess in Heaven" falling outside the time frame. Bland was a much different vocalist by now, and if anything, these tracks, some of them flirting outright with disco, spearheaded the easy listening-blues style that he continued with in later years. Highlights include "This Time I'm Gone for Good," an uncharacteristically funky "Goin' Down Slow," "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)," "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City," "Yolanda," and Bland's own "The Soul of a Man." Experiments with country show up on "Today I Started Loving You Again" and "I Hate You," and yet Bland's duet with B.B. King on Louis Jordan's "Let the Good Times Roll" shows that his blues roots were still always close at hand. Not the place to start, but his last hurrah before going over to Malaco, and a solid collection to investigate nonetheless. ~ Cub Koda | | By the end of his staggering 20-year run at the Duke label, Bobby Bland was rightly acknowledged as one of the premiere blues singers of all time. His constant presence on the R&B charts was matched only by his constant touring, a nearly endless pursuit that might very well have brought him to every smoky nightclub on earth. His first handful of post-Duke recordings, the best of which are included here, nearly match up to his early work, albeit in a decidedly different manner. The sophisticated uptown blues are replaced with a slinky groove that snakes its way throughout this compilation. Bland's manner is more relaxed, as if he's easing himself down into a hot tub with a bottle of champagne. Like the best of Bland's work, the mood is still sultry. "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" and "Yolanda" are as sexy as anything in his catalogue. One thing's for sure: if Bobby Bland is singing from a jacuzzi, he's not alone. |
Musical Guests | | B.B. King |
|
CD
