Search - Earl King :: King of New Orleans

Rock solid late-career collection

A. L. Moss | 05/19/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"King of New Orleans is a compilation of New Orleans great Earl King's three albums for the Black Top Label: Glazed (w/ Roomful of Blues, 1988), Sexual Telepathy (1990), and Hard River to Cross (1993).



There are five tracks from each of the three releases on this 16-track release by Varese Sarabande's classy Fuel 2000 imprint, with the stray track the Sexual Telepathy outtake "Life's Ups and Downs," which only previously appeared on the Black Top Records sampler Black Top Blues-a-Rama (1990).



Here's the breakdown of tracks from each:



From the grammy-nominated Glazed (w/Roomful of Blues, 1988) (5): Love Rent, It All Went Down the Drain, Iron Cupid, Three Can Play the Game, Mardi Gras In the City (aka Mardi Gras in New Orleans)



From Sexual Telepathy (1990) (5): Sexual Telepathy, Going Public, Old Mr. Bad Luck, Happy Little Nobody's Waggy Tail Dog, Make a Better World



From Hard River to Cross (1993) (5): No City Like New Orleans, Medieval Days, Hard River to Cross, Clairvoyant Lady, Seduction



If you love Earl King, you'll enjoy this late-career release, which shows the legend to be in fine form. If you're looking for an introduction, however, this is probably not the album for you, though unfortunately there is not a career-spanning CD collection to which to turn. Compiling such a collection would be a cross-licenser's nightmare, as Earl recorded for the following labels before finding his way to Black Top in the 80's: Savoy (1953), Specialty (1954), Ace and its subsidiary labels Vin and Rex (1955-1960), Imperial and its subsidiary label Post (1960-1962), Motown (1963, though the recordings were unreleased until 1996), the Bell subsidiary label Amy (1965), the Chess subsidiary Checker (1965), Drew-Blan (196?), Atlantic (1972 and 1976, also unreleased at the time), and Sonet (1977).



The Specialty, Ace, and Imperial material represents his peak, but you'll need more than one collection to hit on all of the essential side from these years.

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