One evening in 1984 or 85 my father came home with this album – Albert King ‘New Orleans Heat’. He told me he had heard it on the radio late at night and had to get it because he loved the song he had heard ‘The Feeling’.
I was 14 or 15 and already developed a rising interest in Blues. As a guitar playing teenager in the mid 80’s naturally my main blues guitar hero was Stevie Ray Vaughan but I guess this Albert King album opened the door for me into the real deal guys like Otis Rush, Little Milton, Jimmy Johnson and others. Why this late 70’s mix of deep Blues and lush, funky arrangements struck a chord with a German teenager – I don’t know. I guess you don’t choose your taste in music – it just happens when you can connect to it. I spent many hours jamming to ‘New Orleans Heat’ in my room and I think it influenced my style of playing and my taste in blues music to this day although I was also strongly into Texas guitar players and Jump Blues in my twenties.
Albert King to me is like a slow driving Ferrari. You can feel the immense power and energy but he doesn’t have to prove it – it’s there all the time. The „Velvet Bulldozer“ also had the fitting authority for his mostly no-nonsense song material. Albert King’s singing and playing was always strong and relaxed at the same time. He never overplayed but very rarely he did fire from all cylinders and showed everybody how it’s done with just a few notes.