Albert King – King Of The Blues Guitar

Great selection of tunes, incredible playing, and a very good sounding Monarch Pressing. Recommended.

This reissue, the original Atlantic CD release ("Mastering by Zal Schreiber, Atlantic Studios, NYC" with six bonus tracks for a total of 17 tracks), is highly recommended. It has every track from King's greatest and most celebrated studio LP, BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN, and it's possibly the best digital mastering available.

The only other digital mastering I could recommend is MFSL's gold CD release of BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN, which is similar and presents that album in its original sequence, but I think this CD is the better buy. The track sequence still plays fine - hearing the original LP sequence before the additional tracks would have been nice but not a major advantage or necessary - and more importantly, the additional material is very welcome.

Both the MFSL CD and this CD use the original stereo mixes for the BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN tracks, and it may seem a little unbalanced with the vocals too low. I'm still glad they used the stereo mix because the mono mixes push the horns way up and bury the lead guitar, which doesn't feel like the right move for an Albert King record. Normally I'd prefer the mono mixes for a Stax/Volt record, but this is the rare case where I prefer the stereo.

Great album which includes two hits! More affordable that his frist album.