I’ve been down since I started to crawl
If it wasn’t for unhealthy luck
I wouldn’t don’t have any luck in any respect
– “Born Under A Bad Sign”
Merely one of many biggest blues choruses ever. It’s screaming: “Life don’t get much harder than this!” The funky, swinging bass line, perforated with defiant, nearly haughty guitar licks, is a legendary piece of music. It’s a kind of songs that individuals know as quickly as they hear the immediately recognizable introduction – nevertheless it’s extra more likely to be the Cream model that they’ll keep in mind. The band reworked the title observe from Albert King’s Born Below A Dangerous Signal into an enormous hit, serving to the album Wheels Of Fireplace to the No.3 and No.1 chart positions within the UK and US, respectively, and producing the first-ever platinum-selling double-album.
Take heed to Born Below A Dangerous Signal proper now.
These chargeable for creating such a basic music have been Booker T. Jones, who wrote the music and that good 6+5-note bass riff, and Stax R&B singer William Bell, who wrote the lyrics. Or did he? The phrases to “Born Under A Bad Sign” are much like Lightnin’ Slim’s “Bad Luck,” from 1954, and it’s onerous to think about Bell’s lyrics have been a coincidence.
Lord, if it wasn’t for unhealthy luck
Lightnin’ wouldn’t don’t have any luck in any respect
You understand unhealthy luck has been followin’ poor Lightnin’
Ever since I started to crawl
Fact is, the blues is riddled with comparable phrases and riffs popping up far and wide. It’s a form of residing library, and Lightnin’ Slim’s phrases could have lodged in Bell’s unconscious, able to be “borrowed” on the proper second in time.
“Born Under A Bad Sign” has since been recorded individually for Stax Data by Booker T. & The MGs, on their 1968 album Soul Limbo, and by William Bell on Sure To Occur, in 1969. It’s additionally been lined by everybody from Jimi Hendrix to Paul Butterfield, Etta James, Massive Mama Thornton, Buddy Man with Koko Taylor, Robben Ford, and Rita Coolidge. However no model comes near the one which kicks off Albert King’s mighty Born Below A Dangerous Signal album, launched in August 1967.
If you would like the actual soul of the music, a real soul-blues – the one which echoes in these desperately dispirited phrases, then Albert King’s model has received to be the one.
A lot of the soulfulness on Born Below A Dangerous Signal (the album) is contributed by Booker T & The MGs, the Stax home backing band, with Steve Cropper on rhythm guitar, Booker T Jones taking part in organ and piano, Isaac Hayes on piano, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass guitar, Al Jackson Jr., on drums, Wayne Jackson on trumpet, Andrew Love on tenor saxophone, and Joe Arnold on baritone saxophone and flute. And, after all, King’s pin-prick word bending: a hark again to his early influences, and particularly the slide taking part in of Blind Lemon Jefferson. King’s funky phrasing got here from hours and hours of listening to T-Bone Walker and Lonnie Johnson, however you’ll hear numerous BB King vibrato and financial system of taking part in in there too. One of many “Three Kings Of The Blues Guitar” (together with BB and Freddie), Albert claimed to be BB’s half-brother, so maybe it’s no shock their taking part in is acquainted.
All of the cuts on Born Below A Dangerous Signal are glorious and get a constant therapy, producing one in every of King’s most balanced releases. The album was definitely appreciated by the general public, charting on the Billboard Prime 50. Different songs needing a point out embody the somewhat racy 12-bar blues “Crosscut Saw” (“Now, I’m a crosscut saw, drag me ’cross yo’ log”), recorded as early as 1941 by Delta bluesman Tommy McClennan, which King restyles with intoxicating Latino shuffle and a good horn association. “The Hunter” additionally serves up one thing particular, prepared for the pot and as trademark Booker T & The MGs as “Green Onions”. It’s a pulsating stew of a observe on a excessive flame, tasty and nourishing.
“Kansas City” is firmly again in King territory, with pretty drum kicks and horn lifts to the rhythm. It’s a lightweight and stylish contact, earlier than “Oh, Pretty Woman” enters and all of it will get muscular once more: pulsating, rippling and horny. And so it continues, and not using a weakling inside listening to distance.
When you’ve got already been lucky sufficient to have heard this most glorious of albums, then depend your fortunate stars. Should you haven’t, then it’s clearly time for a change of luck. Go forward, give it a hear. Born Below A Dangerous Signal will make your day.
Born Below A Dangerous Signal could be purchased right here.
