SONG: Please Love Me
ARTIST: B.B. King
YEAR: 1953
Listen to it here:
THE SONG:
Not much has been written about this specific song, King’s influences in writing it, or how it came about to be recorded. It has what has become a standard instrumentation for a blues band, plus a trumpet, and the guitar has almost the same starring role as the voice – it’s like King and his guitar are a duo.
THE ARTIST:
Riley B. King was born in September 1925 on a cotton plantation in Mississippi two sharecropper parents. When King was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, and so King was raised by his maternal grandmother. When he was living with his grandma, BB King sang in the gospel choir at his church. The minister at the church, who played guitar, taught King his first three chords, and at age 12, King bought his first guitar for $15. As a teen, he listened to the new radio show, “King Biscuit Time”, which featured the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened during breaks at the plantation, and decided then that he wanted to become a radio musician. He later had an opportunity to visit Memphis, Tennessee, and returned home ready to prepare thoroughly for his next visit, which would be in his early twenties. King was able to perform on a local radio show. This slowly helped him develop a small following, which led to him getting a regular engagement at a local restaurant, and a weekly 10 minute spot on the radio. This radio spot became so popular it was expanded into a show called the Sepia Swing Club.
His regular gigs led him to meet more blues musicians until he gradually became a staple of the blues scene in Memphis. At that time,Ike Turner was a talent scout at Modern Records, and it was him who introduced BB King to future members of his band; the B.B. King Review.
Once King got his first Billboard Rhythm and Blues number one hit, “3 O’Clock Blues”, B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, and arguably for all the subsequent decades.
FACTOID CORNER:
- B.B. King worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy”, which was later shortened to “Blues Boy”, and finally to B.B.
- During a show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men, and caused a fire. King evacuated along with the rest of the crowd, but went back to retrieve his guitar. He said he later found out that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named his guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women or run into any more burning buildings.
KELLY’S REVIEW:
Oof that’s bluesy! The epitome of 12 bar blues right here. For some reason when I think of B.B. King I don’t often think about his singing, more his guitar playing and his glossy black Gibson ES 345 “Lucille”, so I enjoyed hearing him sing here. His guitar playing of COURSE is on point and in your face, like the guitar is his hype man. As we’ve covered before, I respect the blues genre although I’m not crazy about it and recognize that B.B. was a LEGEND, but this song arrangement and recording is a MESS. The guitar is front and centre, and then a mushy swamp of other instruments, and then maybe the drums, and alllll the way in the back is B.B., sounding like he’s trying to be heard over the cacophony of whatever is going on here. This song itself is a really good example of early Blues, with the 12 bar blues chord progression, song structure and melody, but there’s just something about the arrangement for me that’s terribly off-putting. Sorry, B.B.
HOLLY’S REVIEW:
Well you can clearly tell from the first bar who this is likely to be and it really feels like a whole lot of the history of blues music is shoved into this one song. I’m admittedly not a huge blues fan, because I find the form and chord changes kind of repetitive, but B.B. King is good at what he does and injects energy into the genre, which I really like. I can’t help but think how damned boring the saxophone backing parts are in this though. Oof. Just the same line over and over. But other than that, King’s voice is easy to listen to and full of energy, and I really like the tone of his guitar. He always puts his voice AND the guitar at the forefront which almost makes this sound like a duo with a backing band, and it works well. Finally we’re starting to hear a little bass in this one, and I like the walking bass in this song quite a bit. You can also hear improvements in recording quality as you can actually hear the stand up bass even with those cymbals splashing all over the place. Although I can’t say I’m anywhere near an expert in King’s discography, this specific song was new to me, and one that hasn’t been written about too much, so maybe it doesn’t carry the historical import that others of his songs do. Because of this, my mark is purely on what I think of this song as a stand alone, and not for any historical importance reasons.
Average mark out of 10:
Holly: 7/10
Kelly: 6/10
Other notable versions of this song:
Walter Trout:
Listen with us!
Link to 1,001 Songs to Hear Before You Die spotify playlist:
SONG: Please Love Me
ARTIST: B.B. King
YEAR: 1953
Listen to it here:
THE SONG:
Not much has been written about this specific song, King’s influences in writing it, or how it came about to be recorded. It has what has become a standard instrumentation for a blues band, plus a trumpet, and the guitar has almost the same starring role as the voice – it’s like King and his guitar are a duo.
THE ARTIST:
Riley B. King was born in September 1925 on a cotton plantation in Mississippi two sharecropper parents. When King was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, and so King was raised by his maternal grandmother. When he was living with his grandma, BB King sang in the gospel choir at his church. The minister at the church, who played guitar, taught King his first three chords, and at age 12, King bought his first guitar for $15. As a teen, he listened to the new radio show, “King Biscuit Time”, which featured the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened during breaks at the plantation, and decided then that he wanted to become a radio musician. He later had an opportunity to visit Memphis, Tennessee, and returned home ready to prepare thoroughly for his next visit, which would be in his early twenties. King was able to perform on a local radio show. This slowly helped him develop a small following, which led to him getting a regular engagement at a local restaurant, and a weekly 10 minute spot on the radio. This radio spot became so popular it was expanded into a show called the Sepia Swing Club.
His regular gigs led him to meet more blues musicians until he gradually became a staple of the blues scene in Memphis. At that time,Ike Turner was a talent scout at Modern Records, and it was him who introduced BB King to future members of his band; the B.B. King Review.
Once King got his first Billboard Rhythm and Blues number one hit, “3 O’Clock Blues”, B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, and arguably for all the subsequent decades.
FACTOID CORNER:
- B.B. King worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy”, which was later shortened to “Blues Boy”, and finally to B.B.
- During a show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men, and caused a fire. King evacuated along with the rest of the crowd, but went back to retrieve his guitar. He said he later found out that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named his guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women or run into any more burning buildings.
KELLY’S REVIEW:
Oof that’s bluesy! The epitome of 12 bar blues right here. For some reason when I think of B.B. King I don’t often think about his singing, more his guitar playing and his glossy black Gibson ES 345 “Lucille”, so I enjoyed hearing him sing here. His guitar playing of COURSE is on point and in your face, like the guitar is his hype man. As we’ve covered before, I respect the blues genre although I’m not crazy about it and recognize that B.B. was a LEGEND, but this song arrangement and recording is a MESS. The guitar is front and centre, and then a mushy swamp of other instruments, and then maybe the drums, and alllll the way in the back is B.B., sounding like he’s trying to be heard over the cacophony of whatever is going on here. This song itself is a really good example of early Blues, with the 12 bar blues chord progression, song structure and melody, but there’s just something about the arrangement for me that’s terribly off-putting. Sorry, B.B.
HOLLY’S REVIEW:
Well you can clearly tell from the first bar who this is likely to be and it really feels like a whole lot of the history of blues music is shoved into this one song. I’m admittedly not a huge blues fan, because I find the form and chord changes kind of repetitive, but B.B. King is good at what he does and injects energy into the genre, which I really like. I can’t help but think how damned boring the saxophone backing parts are in this though. Oof. Just the same line over and over. But other than that, King’s voice is easy to listen to and full of energy, and I really like the tone of his guitar. He always puts his voice AND the guitar at the forefront which almost makes this sound like a duo with a backing band, and it works well. Finally we’re starting to hear a little bass in this one, and I like the walking bass in this song quite a bit. You can also hear improvements in recording quality as you can actually hear the stand up bass even with those cymbals splashing all over the place. Although I can’t say I’m anywhere near an expert in King’s discography, this specific song was new to me, and one that hasn’t been written about too much, so maybe it doesn’t carry the historical import that others of his songs do. Because of this, my mark is purely on what I think of this song as a stand alone, and not for any historical importance reasons.
Average mark out of 10:
Holly: 7/10
Kelly: 6/10
Other notable versions of this song:
Walter Trout:
Listen with us!
Link to 1,001 Songs to Hear Before You Die spotify playlist:
SONG: Please Love Me
ARTIST: B.B. King
YEAR: 1953
Listen to it here:
THE SONG:
Not much has been written about this specific song, King’s influences in writing it, or how it came about to be recorded. It has what has become a standard instrumentation for a blues band, plus a trumpet, and the guitar has almost the same starring role as the voice – it’s like King and his guitar are a duo.
THE ARTIST:
Riley B. King was born in September 1925 on a cotton plantation in Mississippi two sharecropper parents. When King was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, and so King was raised by his maternal grandmother. When he was living with his grandma, BB King sang in the gospel choir at his church. The minister at the church, who played guitar, taught King his first three chords, and at age 12, King bought his first guitar for $15. As a teen, he listened to the new radio show, “King Biscuit Time”, which featured the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened during breaks at the plantation, and decided then that he wanted to become a radio musician. He later had an opportunity to visit Memphis, Tennessee, and returned home ready to prepare thoroughly for his next visit, which would be in his early twenties. King was able to perform on a local radio show. This slowly helped him develop a small following, which led to him getting a regular engagement at a local restaurant, and a weekly 10 minute spot on the radio. This radio spot became so popular it was expanded into a show called the Sepia Swing Club.
His regular gigs led him to meet more blues musicians until he gradually became a staple of the blues scene in Memphis. At that time,Ike Turner was a talent scout at Modern Records, and it was him who introduced BB King to future members of his band; the B.B. King Review.
Once King got his first Billboard Rhythm and Blues number one hit, “3 O’Clock Blues”, B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, and arguably for all the subsequent decades.
FACTOID CORNER:
- B.B. King worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy”, which was later shortened to “Blues Boy”, and finally to B.B.
- During a show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men, and caused a fire. King evacuated along with the rest of the crowd, but went back to retrieve his guitar. He said he later found out that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named his guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women or run into any more burning buildings.
KELLY’S REVIEW:
Oof that’s bluesy! The epitome of 12 bar blues right here. For some reason when I think of B.B. King I don’t often think about his singing, more his guitar playing and his glossy black Gibson ES 345 “Lucille”, so I enjoyed hearing him sing here. His guitar playing of COURSE is on point and in your face, like the guitar is his hype man. As we’ve covered before, I respect the blues genre although I’m not crazy about it and recognize that B.B. was a LEGEND, but this song arrangement and recording is a MESS. The guitar is front and centre, and then a mushy swamp of other instruments, and then maybe the drums, and alllll the way in the back is B.B., sounding like he’s trying to be heard over the cacophony of whatever is going on here. This song itself is a really good example of early Blues, with the 12 bar blues chord progression, song structure and melody, but there’s just something about the arrangement for me that’s terribly off-putting. Sorry, B.B.
HOLLY’S REVIEW:
Well you can clearly tell from the first bar who this is likely to be and it really feels like a whole lot of the history of blues music is shoved into this one song. I’m admittedly not a huge blues fan, because I find the form and chord changes kind of repetitive, but B.B. King is good at what he does and injects energy into the genre, which I really like. I can’t help but think how damned boring the saxophone backing parts are in this though. Oof. Just the same line over and over. But other than that, King’s voice is easy to listen to and full of energy, and I really like the tone of his guitar. He always puts his voice AND the guitar at the forefront which almost makes this sound like a duo with a backing band, and it works well. Finally we’re starting to hear a little bass in this one, and I like the walking bass in this song quite a bit. You can also hear improvements in recording quality as you can actually hear the stand up bass even with those cymbals splashing all over the place. Although I can’t say I’m anywhere near an expert in King’s discography, this specific song was new to me, and one that hasn’t been written about too much, so maybe it doesn’t carry the historical import that others of his songs do. Because of this, my mark is purely on what I think of this song as a stand alone, and not for any historical importance reasons.
Average mark out of 10:
Holly: 7/10
Kelly: 6/10
Other notable versions of this song:
Walter Trout:
Listen with us!
Link to 1,001 Songs to Hear Before You Die spotify playlist:
Holly & Kelly Music Review 