At the age of six, blues musician Freddie King (known as the “Texas Cannonball”) received his first guitar and began taking lessons from his mother, Ella Mae King, and his uncle Leon King. Soon after, he earned enough money to buy a Roger guitar from a local music store by picking cotton. After his parents divorced, the family moved to Chicago, where a sixteen-year-old King sneaked into a blues club one night and sat in with the house band, which included the legendary Howlin’ Wolf. While working in a steel mill, King played in the evenings with Earlee Payton‘s Blues Cats, the Little Sonny Cooper Band, and with guitarist Jimmy Lee Robinson and drummer Frank (Sonny) Scott in the trio Every Hour Blues Boys. In 1953, he also participated in studio sessions for Parrot Records, among others, though none of the recordings were ever released. Despite being rejected by Chess Records due to his vocal resemblance to B.B. King, Freddie King released his first record, Country boy, in 1956 on the independent El-Bee label. The single, which featured a duet with Margaret Whitfield and Robert “Junior” Lockwood on guitar, garnered little attention.
By 1960, Freddie King had signed with King-Federal-DeLuxe, a label that also represented blues and soul artists like James Brown. Alongside pianist Sonny Thompson, King produced recordings such as Have you ever loved a woman and Hide away (1960), the latter becoming an instrumental crossover hit between blues and pop. Producer and record company owner Syd Nathan expertly capitalized on this crossover success, helping King achieve lasting commercial success. From 1961 to 1963, King sold more records than any other blues artist, including B.B. King, toured extensively in concert halls and nightclubs, and performed at numerous jazz and blues festivals. In 1963, King moved to Dallas to reunite with his wife and six children, who had returned to Texas the previous year due to the challenges of the music business.
King signed with Cotillion Records in 1968, where he recorded two albums: Freddie King is a blues master in 1969 and My feeling for the blues in 1970. During this period, he also embarked on extensive concert tours through England, where he was backed by members of the English blues group Steamhammer. King’s music had a significant impact on the blues rock scene of the time, influencing rock guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor, who incorporated his style into their own bands.
This according to a new entry on Freddie King by Volkmar Kramarz in MGG Online.
Image credit for the first photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images
Related Bibliolore posts:
https://bibliolore.org/2017/09/25/faulkner-and-blues/
https://bibliolore.org/2016/01/31/roosevelt-sykess-upbeat-blues/
https://bibliolore.org/2015/07/01/willie-dixon-blues-innovator/
