WOW!!!! this is amazing!!! The most concentrated collection of CLASSIC 50's BB KING ever assembeled.......All from original master tapes with INCREDIBLE sound quality and a stunning book....IT GETS NO BETTER THAN THIS!!!!! GET IT WHILE YOU CAN!!!.........
Ace Records is extremely honoured to be able to present THE VINTAGE YEARS, a momentous 4-CD box set of B.B. King's landmark recordings for the Modern Records group on the RPM, Crown and Kent labels in the 1950s and 1960s. B.B. is a true international icon, unquestionably the founding father of the blues and rock guitar styles. Here, his budding genius is revealed for all to see. Looking back as the leader of this project, I became drawn more and more to B.B.'s music even though I had been listening to him forever. Most notably I was struck by the purity of his vocals (which have tended to be overshadowed by his peerless guitar work), by his knowledge and adaptation of seemingly the entire history of black recorded music, by his growing musical sophistication, and by those superb Maxwell Davis arrangements that have truly matured with age. At the end of it all, my admiration for this body of B.B.'s work is higher than ever. The individual CDs here can be summarised as follows: CD1: The Great B.B. contains many of the big hits readily associated with B.B. that he still plays to this day. CD2: Memphis Blues'n'Boogie is a look at the rare recordings of the early 1950s engineered by Sam Phillips in Memphis, followed by those directed by Bill Harvey in Houston. Session-by-session, you can see B.B. finding his own style. CD3: Take A Swing With Me covers the mid-late 1950s when B.B. was touring constantly, and Maxwell Davis became the music director. By this time, the blues market had started to dip, leading B.B. to record in a variety of styles from R&B, rock'n'roll, pop and doo wop to jazz and gospel. CD4: King Of The Blues is where B.B. establishes his blues mastery as his association with Modern Records draws to an end.
