{"id":298,"date":"2010-02-20T16:04:36","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T21:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2010\/02\/what_if_bb_king_and_buddy_guy\/"},"modified":"2019-09-13T13:03:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T17:03:35","slug":"what_if_bb_king_and_buddy_guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/02\/what_if_bb_king_and_buddy_guy.html","title":{"rendered":"What if B.B. King and Buddy Guy played NYC and nobody came?"},"content":{"rendered":"

B.B. King, 84 yr old #1 living blues icon of the world, and Buddy Guy, 73 yr old 1st runner-up, concertized in New York City last weekend, but there’s been a near-total news blackout. Here’s<\/a> a review from the Financial Times of London<\/i>. Meanwhile, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, British blues pretenders (as in pretenders to the throne) rated a three-column photo and full front page New York Times arts section review<\/a>,<\/p>\n


\nMaybe what made Clapton-Beck\u00c2\u00a0more newsworthy\u00c2\u00a0(they were\u00c2\u00a0mentioned<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in the Times’ Pop and Rock Listings on Feb 11 and 18)\u00c2\u00a0and King-Guy less so (they were only in the P & R listings once<\/a>) were the venues: Madison Square Garden for the former, United Palace Theater (it’s at 175th & Broadway, Washington Heights) for the latter. Beck was also subject of a Times feature<\/a> on Feb. 12.<\/p>\n

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But the United Palace is where the Allman Brothers Band<\/a> has moved its annual NYC run, March \u00c2\u00a011 – 27 (all 13 shows of which will be streamed on Allman Bros. member Butch Truck’s subscription website<\/a>; until March 11, year-long subs cost $150, less than the price of a front row seat). Any bets that the Times won’t<\/i> send a critic uptown to report on that?<\/div>\n
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For those eager to know how Buddy and B.B. did together — they’ve just wrapped up a winter-long tour, and B.B.’s already announced his next dates!<\/a> –\u00c2\u00a0here’s<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0a write-up of their show in St. Louis on February 18. Even better, here’s a hot Youtube clip of the two of them (with Joe Louis Walker to B.B.’s right; this is from the Blues Summit Memphis, 1993) wailing on “I Can’t Quit You Baby.”<\/div>\n
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This song was penned by Willie Dixon for\u00c2\u00a0the great Otis Rush, who\u00c2\u00a0immortalized it with his\u00c2\u00a0hit\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>of\u00c2\u00a01956 (and hasn’t performed at all since suffering a stroke in 2004 — photo below by Masaki Rush).<\/div>\n
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Otis Rush, photo \u00c2\u00a9 Masaki Rush<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Oh yeah, “I Can’t Quit You”\u00c2\u00a0is probably best known from the Robert Plant-Jimmy Page version<\/a> on the first Led Zeppelin album, which sold multi-platinum in 1969. Ain’t that the blues? (Maybe not if Otis gets some royalties. . . )<\/div>\n
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