One Kind Favor – BB King

One Kind Favor – BB King

This isn’t just B.B. King’s best album in years, it’s one of the strongest studio sets of his career, standing alongside classics such as Singin’ the Blues and Lucille. Where those early titles highlighted his youthful, wailing vocals and stinging guitar, this one plays to King’s current strengths: the tear-stained vibrato of his mature voice, punctuated by raunchy licks.

This album is collaborations of the Kings closest friends, They include commendable versions of his signature “The Thrill Is Gone,” with Eric Clapton trading vocal lines and licks, and Howard Tate’s “Ain’t Nobody Home,” with Daryl Hall answering King’s gritty growl. There are obscurities, too, like “Tired of Your Jive,” with a jocular Billy Gibbons, and “Hummingbird,” transformed into a melodic gem with the assistance of John Mayer

All in all, the album is more punchier, stronger, stripped down blues and the ‘King’ sounds more younger.

It doesn’t get better and bigger than this.