Few bodies of blues recordings have been as influential as Albert King’s 1966-67 output at Stax Records, on singles and on the Born Under a Bad sign album. The LP collected songs from his first Stax four 45s and five songs from a June 1967 session to complete the album. Three of the singles, ‘Laundromat Blues,’ ‘Born Under A Bad Sign,’ and ‘Crosscut Saw,’ had hit the Billboard R&B charts and King was also beginning to cross over into the rock market as a guitar guru whose licks reappeared in the work of Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, and other six-string heroes as well countless axmen anchoring black blues clubs across the country. Booker T. & the MGs and the Memphis Horns provided exemplary backing on songs and arrangements that became standards in the repertoire of electric blues, and King did more than blaze a trail on guitar, showing that he was also one of the most expressive of blues vocalists, even on ballad material like ‘The Very Thought of You.’
Tracks: Born Under A Bad Sign/Crosscut Saw/Kansas City/Oh Pretty Woman/Down Don’t Bother Me/The Hunter/I Almost Lost My Mind/Personal Manager/Laundromat Blues/As The Years Go Passing By
Released as Stax S-723 (LP) in 1967.