Completely Well / Live in Cook County Jail

I love it and it came sooo super fast I'm going to order more of his cds

Two outstanding B.B. King albums! But, not remastered! Back cover says AAD! Analog-Analog-Digital! This info is removed when remastered! Save your money! Peace!

Awesome

It's unconscionable that "Completely Well"---the album that finished what "Live at the Regal" started and his first BluesWay sets (especially the great missing "Blues on Top of Blues" and the charming "Lucille") continued apace over the second half of the 1960s, the graduation of B.B. King from the chitlin' circuit to the mainstream without cutting the heart out of his music---should be out of print on its own.But if you have to take it in a combination for now, there's no better combination than with "Live at Cook County Jail," where he gives an audience that's just bloody happy to have him there, period, a compact lesson in where he came from that doesn't flag for energy, for commitment, or for the master's equal pleasure in being there. His monologuing on "Worry, Worry, Worry" is an absolute crackup even now; his obvious affection for the music that launched him in the first place (the medley of "Three O'Clock Blues/Darling, You Know I Love You" that opened side two of the original vinyl release) is irrepressible . . . and appreciated by his audience, even if you want to dismiss a jail audience as having no choice between what they get and isolation. Not that they'd have refused him. It's probably the second-best live album in his canon (it's easily the second-best live album from any penal concert, "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" taking the top prize even now, of course), though his sets later in the 1970s with fellow Memphis stalwart Bobby Bland run an extremely close third on the energy alone.As for "Completely Well," it would have earned its place in the B.B. King canon strictly by virtue of "The Thrill is Gone," the last time the pure blues ever hit the Top 40 with that kind of vengeance and the song that became, justly so, his calling card ever since. He finds the real essence in this one-time throwaway (he'd never recorded it before this) and wrings every drop from it, in both his melismatically soulful vocal---Dave Marsh had it just right when he noted the intermingling of rage and bereavement---and in the transcendent spare single-note guitar lines. The strings (arranged by Bert De Coteaux, who should have gotten a Nobel Prize for Understated Excellence for it) accent and bind, not overthrow King's voice and, especially, guitar coda. (That counterpoint De Coteaux sets up for King in the coda amplifies how jaw-dropping King's playing is for what is said with so few notes. The shredders only wish they could play with that much soul.) The single got as high as number fifteen on Billboard, and it deserved even better. (As the summer of 1969 receded, you could also make a case that "The Thrill is Gone" was kind of an unwitting farewell for the Woodstock generation post-Woodstock, even if their heads were a little too far up their derrieres to know it---Altamont, after all, was only a few months away.)The rest of the set? If "The Thrill is Gone" hadn't been the album's telegraph and you picked it up before the hit, "So Excited," the leadoff track, might have turned you off before you dug deep into the meat. It's the kind of throwaway, soul-rocking blues King could have done in his sleep and, unless you accept it as a kind of warmup it's something you can believe he could have done without. But then comes a trio of blues ("No Good," "You're Losin' Me," "What Happened") that fit more into what you expect of King; and, an unearthing of a chestnut (the Jay McShann classic "Confessin' the Blues") that harks back---as does the followup cut, "Key to My Kingdom"---to King's early love for the kind of big-band blues his idol T-Bone Walker mastered, with an empathetic rhythm section and some smart keyboard work bolstering the master."Crying Won't Help You Now" is a revisitation for King and a rocking one, especially as it slides into a nearly ten-minute jam ("You're Mean") that shows the side of King you didn't hear that often until then---the side of a man having a complete blast with his music and his musicians. (The core band is the same one that showed up on the studio side of the preceding "Live & Well": Herbie Lovelle, drums; Jerry Jemmott, bass; Paul Harris, keyboards; Hugh McCracken, guitar---Jemmott and Harris were also stalwarts of the New York performances of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper's "Super Session" concerts, incidentally.)All of which is both a revelation and a mere warm-up for the transcendence of "The Thrill is Gone." You can say B.B. King has made more important music than this, but not that he's played better---because blues guitar just doesn't get better than this. Not his; not, really, anyone's. Though a lot of people have been making very fine careers trying.

I figured I'd like the Blues but I was very surprised by the very high production quality. Like you're there in the studio or jail with Lucille wailing.

Deux albums du début des années 1970 réunis, un en studio et l'autre en concert dans une prison, avec une bonne version de « Sweet Sixteen », parmi les meilleures de B.B. King. Une de ses bonnes périodes.

Les esprits chagrins, les jaloux et autres bêtes à encre nuisible ont jadis décrété que l'album Completely Well était le chant du cygne de cet immense bluesman qu'est Mr B.B. King, voire même que c'était là son épitaphe...ci-gît l'artiste...Foutaise que tout ça!!!Bien sur on est loin du Delta avec les arrangements soul de Bill Szymczyk mais la touche funky de cette période n'est en rien à mes yeux une trahison aux "roots of the Blues". Le blues est une musique vivante, protéiforme et évolutive. Refuser cela revient à en faire une relique ou une pièce de musée. Bas les pattes messieurs les jaloux et ne commettez pas de crime de lèse-majesté.Ceux qui se sentent gênés par le succès de "Thrill is Gone" n'ont qu'à essayer de pondre un morceau aussi bon et ensuite, peut-être que leur critique sera un peu audible. Je recommande cet album comme médecine de prévention à la dépression car le blues de Mr Riley King est jubilatoire, magique et bienfaisant! Vive le Roi!

La grabacion de "completely well" son de los trabajos de BBKing que hay que tener si o si. Y en este caso añaden otra grabacion, que para mi, esta lejos del primer CD pero que tambien es interesante para oir a BBKing en un entorno no controlado.

B.B. King est le roi du blues, que cela soit pour son chant déchirant ou son jeu de guitare totalement bluffant avec son vibrato inimitable.Completely Well, est un très bon album, avec une section rythmique ahurissante, lorgnant un peu sur la funk pour notre plus grand plaisir, et "The Thrill Is Gone" en cerise sur le gateau.Le Live in Cook County Jail est du niveau du Live At Regal, le King est très en forme, hurle, vocifère et prie alors que son jeu de guitare est à son comble.Du très très grand art !