Happy 50th Anniversary to B.B. King’s Live In Cook County Jail, originally recorded September 10, 1970 and released in January 1971 (specific release date N/A).
When you check the frequent lists of greatest albums of all time or greatest live albums, B.B. King’s Live At The Regal (recorded in 1964) is frequently spotted in the upper echelons of the countdown. It is easy to see why too—a raucous nightclub crowd felt the full force of an artist pouring everything into the six strings of his guitar. The excitement and ribald atmosphere is palpable.
Yet some seven years later, King would release another live album that is close to surpassing Live At The Regal and carries even greater weight and meaning for the legendary blues artist. To understand the importance of September 10, 1970 in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, it is vital to put King’s life in the broader context of the Black American experience.
Born during the Great Depression in 1925 on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, King’s beginnings could hardly have been more emblematic of Black America at that point. A rural life, living in the evil shadow of the deeply segregated South was the fate of most black folk. Rather than heading for the industrialized northern cities though (as countless others did), King accompanied his mother’s cousin Bukka White to Memphis, Tennessee and the famed Beale Street.
A steady flow of engagements and appearances soon led to him being given the tag “Beale Street Blues Boy,” which was eventually shortened to Blues Boy and then, simply, B.B. It was the sound of T-Bone Walker’s electric guitar though that shaped his sound and lit the touch paper for his career, resulting in success that ensured he saw those cities of the North.
Giving James Brown a run for his money as the hardest working man in show business, King had a punishing schedule of at least 250 gigs a year—the itinerant blues man incarnate. The punishing Chitlin Circuit combined with tours of northern theatres meant he was as successful as any bluesman in the US. But by quirk of fate, he was yet to go global. Whereas Chicago bluesmen (predominantly those with Chess Records) had been deified by the young British wave of guitarists in the early 1960s, King remained relatively unknown.
This may, ironically, have been to his advantage. Allied to the fact that he was slightly younger than the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmy Reed, King was unencumbered by expectation and was able to be more flexible and adaptable—characteristics that enabled his lengthy and highly successful career. He managed to carve a career outside the heartlands of Chicago and a few southern cities, meaning he could smooth off the roughened edges of the blues to present it to a younger, more sophisticated (in their eyes, at least) black crowd.
Proof of this appeal can be found in his presence amongst the numerous funkateers on the bill for the concert in Zaire that accompanied Ali and Foreman’s ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ in October 1974. As displays of Black American musical ebullience go, that trip is an exceedingly high watermark and for King to be part of it at a time when blues music was struggling for attention, is a huge feather in his cap.
But before that foray to central Africa, King strode into Cook County Jail on September 10, 1970 to record a concert with a vastly different crowd and motivation from the aforementioned Live At The Regal.
Winston Moore, the warden of Cook County, approached King with the idea of performing at the jail, presumably inspired by Johnny Cash’s 1968 At Folsom Prison album that had resurrected Cash’s career after substance abuse problems had chewed him up. That album had been so well received that the idea seemed a sound one to King, but his own experiences as a black man in America lent an extra dimension to the event.
Two-thousand, one-hundred and seventeen mostly young black men were the audience for the concert and King knew that at least some of them would have been there unjustly—the victims of a game governed by the loaded dice of racism and systemic failure. The impact on King was both immediate and long-lasting.
Accompanying King on the journey through the jail to the recreation yard were Wilbert Freeman on bass, Sonny Freeman on drums, John Browning on trumpet, Louis Hubert playing tenor saxophone, Booker Walker on alto sax and Ron Levy on piano. That walk through the jail to set up certainly made clear the task that lay ahead of them.
A whole world away from the alcohol-fueled revelry of a night club gig, this afternoon concert to a few thousand incarcerated men demanded a different kind of performance, one filled with empathy and hope for the inmates lucky enough to have B.B. King in front of them. King, being the consummate professional and seasoned veteran, responded to the needs of that audience in front of him.
For the most part, the blues on offer are a slowed down version of his set list at the time—the slower pace adds a layer of sorrow in the gaps between the notes, thereby offering space for solace and a shedding of anxieties and stresses (of which there would be countless). The tension of 2,000-plus jailed men congregating together is palpable from the get-go.
The introduction illustrates this energy, with a mixture of cheers for the event and boos at the mere mention of the name of the “beloved” Sheriff Woods. Those boos resound further with the mention of the chief justice of the criminal court’s name and it is quite easy to imagine how wrong things could have gone at that point with thousands of imprisoned men aiming their ire at the system that held them captive.
Derisory laughter done with, King blasts out of the blocks with a searing, blistering run through of “Every Day I Have The Blues” and the poignancy of the basic line “Nobody loves me, nobody seems to care” is almost too much to cope with, given the audience of jailed men before him.
“How Blue Can You Get?” offers the band a chance to stretch out and demonstrate their wares before King brings the lyrics in. Chief amongst them, of course, is the utterly unique guitar playing of B.B. King, his sophisticated, single note, staccato style rings out true and firm, a steadfast friend in the worst of times. It is easy to see why the inmates loved it so. One verse in particular reveals the immediate love and connection between King and his captive audience: “I gave you a brand new Ford / But you said I want a Cadillac / I bought you a ten-dollar dinner / And you said thanks for the snack / I let you live in my penthouse / You said well, just a shack / I gave you seven children / And now you wanna give ‘em back.”
The positioning of King as the weary, doing-his-best-and-pleasing-nobody, unloved everyday guy, stands him shoulder to shoulder with the inmates and forms a connection immediately. King’s emotional intelligence in forming such a bond so quickly is astonishing.
Further proof of the band’s tightness is provided by the opening three minutes of an extended “Worry, Worry, Worry” before King comes in blaming his baby for all his ills. It is hard not to think about the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when the circle of friends agree the only reason they are in prison is because the “lawyer fucked me.” In laying the blame elsewhere, King allies himself with those in his audience who may also find themselves laying the blame somewhere other than at their own doors. As coping mechanisms go, it may not be the best approach, but it once again forges an affinity between artist and audience.
During “Worry, Worry, Worry,” there is also an extended conversation (or rap) between King and the audience about the importance of relationships between a man and woman. Some other reviewers found the extended talking sections of the set detrimental to the record, but I feel the polar opposite. It is clear that King recognizes the importance of his concert in the lives of those inmates and he is doing everything in his power to share the benefit of his experiences and improve their lot somehow.
The one key difference between the aforementioned Live At The Regal set list and here is the presence of the single biggest song in B.B. King’s arsenal. Released in December 1969 as a single, King’s version of Hawkins and Darnell’s “The Thrill Is Gone” is his signature song. Here it receives as fine an airing as it ever got. His guitar playing is electrifying and fluidly brilliant and it also contains a nod to that other behemoth of black music—James Brown. About three-and-a-half minutes in, there is a hint of “Get On Up” to the proceedings, as King orchestrates the changes in tempo.
As the set draws to a close, there is a genuine feeling of warmth emanating from King as he thanks the audience and those who made the concert possible—it is clear this has had a profound impact upon him. This is borne out with what followed. Having played Cook County Jail, King set up the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Rehabilitation and Recreation (FAIRR). Alongside the foundation, King also continued to perform free gigs at prisons, such was the impact of this concert.
In a career as long and influential as B.B. King’s, it takes a lot to stand out. The fact that Live At Cook County Jail does just that is testament not just to the imperious performance of King and his band, but also to the added weight lent to it by the audience’s needs and how magnificently they are met by King.
After all, King by name, king by nature.
LISTEN: