Cassette Cover Art Library: Albert King

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Albert King

OK... adding some more tapes to this listing..soon I will have an "Artists list" on, perhaps, the right side of my page..
As part of my reorganization, the titles of each artist will appear as a post, with all the covers I have collected so far. This means that these covers , plus the original posted notes, will be duplicated, for now, while I leave the original postings in their place
I do not know how this will all work out, yet, except that it should make it easier to find what you're looking for., as this site gets more and more covers..I have several thousand yet to post. but the scanning and posting take time...
ThX... Doc
=======================================================================

This album came out originally only on vinyl, while Stax was still in business.Although they did issue some albums on cassettes, they were not common and you almost *never* see any original STAX cassettes anymore (I'm lucky to have some myself) . After they went bankrupt (in '76 , I believe) they eventually got bought out by Fantasy Records, who reissued many Stax albums on cassette from the early 80's onwards , before they stopped making that format altogether..

This was one that came out then for the first time..

'Blues At Sunrise" is a live set, partially from the Montreaux festival, I think...

Perhaps because they were already reissuing his Stax albums, Albert even recorded a few albums for them.

This is I think, his first with them.. They reissued it on CD later under the name "Crosscut Saw'-

Albert does the 'Kings' thing.. that is.. The 'King of the Blues Guitar' does the 'King of Rock and Roll'...

A "Charly R&B" issue of Truckload of Lovin' like they always seem to have to, they've changed the cover from the original "Tomato" release..

And speaking of Tomato releases, here is one. I think this came right after "Truckload"

Although I have no precise date as to when the previous two cassettes were issued, I do know about this next one. It's 1977, a first release, and surprisingly, on RCA. I can only assume that RCA had an arrangement with Utopia, and this album stayed issued on that label for only a very short time, before being on Tomato..

This next one (Red House) is also a very hard one to find, in any format, as well as being the last album of his to come out while he was alive...

This next one is an Europe only STAX issue..I remember owning it once before, years ago, on cassette.. I had to order if from overseas.. and it took months to get. judging by the date on the cassette (1988) it was a brand new release. I tried to find it again for years, but couldn't remember what the album was called.. Probably the fact that it's titled *either* "The Best Of Albert King" -or- "I'll Play the Blues For You", both of which are titles of more well known albums of his, made it a hard find.

However, it was (and still is) the only place to get some of these tracks (Left hand woman, Driving wheel, alternate takes of some others)

Another one I had before, at about the same time, was "Lovejoy"

Good solid Albert King album.. nothing earthshaking..but I'm glad to own it again..

Another couple of recent acquisitions are these next two.. Although , unlike most of the tapes featured on this blog, they're not 'rare" , like all Albert and Freddie King, they're not exactly common either .. Fantasy did,m however, do a good job in making as much of the old Stax catalog available as possible.. I'm always on the lookout for the original cassette releases of them.. Although not all Stax albums ever received a cassette issue, many of Albert's did..

This one "I Wanna Get Funky" is one of my favorites of his, along with "Years Gone By" one which I am still hunting for.. especially in the original Stax issue format..

This next one (I'm in a Phone Booth) came out long after Stax folded, in 1984. It may have the Stax logo, but it recorded at Fantasy's studios..

Well.. one more for the mix...

This one i guess is really well known, because of the Stevie Ray connection.. it's not, well, rare, but it belongs in the Albert King grouping.. so here it is:

This was Albert King's first album proper, although still a collection of 'Sides', it all fit together.. and starts out with a blaster.. "Baby let's have us a Natural Ball" which is swing at it's best:

Here is also the tape scans for it

but also.. another album of his here.. which is consider a monster.. and probably is the purest representation of his Stax years ( I like "years Gone By" , myself, but i must defer to this , as his truest STAX work)

"I'll Play The Blues For You"