The British Acrobat label, which specializes in vintage American music, recently began offering their products to the U.S. market, including a blues-themed compilation of Ike and Tina Turner and a previously unissued live concert by B.B. King.
Ike Turner began playing blues in Clarksdale in the late 1940s, but by the time he hired Tina to front the Kings of Rhythm in the late '50s the band was playing in a more R&B vein. In the '60s their music became even more elaborate, epitomized by the Phil Spector-produced "River Deep, Mountain High."
In 1969 Ike and Tina signed over to the Blue Thumb label, which issued the albums Outta Season and The Hunter. Eighteen tracks from these are collected on the CD Ike and Tina Turner Sing The Blues, which highlight Ike's phenomenal guitar work and Tina's ability to make any style her own.
The hit single from Outta Season was a passionate take of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long," but the other tracks largely draw from downhome bluesmen including Jimmy Reed, Lowell Fulson, T-Bone Walker and Elmore James. Ike mimics Albert King's original guitar work on The Hunter, and the combination of Ike's guitar and Tina's vocals is particularly strong on their take of Bobby Bland's "I Smell Trouble."
The CD B.B. King and His Orchestra Live was recorded live at a jazz festival in Cannes, France, in 1983. Perhaps inspired by the setting, the show begins with a 12-minute instrumental featuring solos by members of the band and when B.B. joins them he forgoes vocals on—ironically—"Why I Sing the Blues."
It's otherwise a standard—and that's to say passionate and exciting—show that features hits including "Sweet Little Angel" and "The Thrill Is Gone" and concludes with the macho bravado of "Paying the Cost to Be the Boss."
