The ‘King’ still reigns

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critic
• Published: Sep 5, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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B.B. King
ONE KIND FAVOR

The latest of B.B. King’s many recordings, One Kind Favor, revisits the music that influenced him and songs he performed early in his career. With Grammy-winner T Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand) producing, the soon-to-be-83 King interprets classics originally recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, Leroy Carr, T-Bone Walker, the Mississippi Sheiks and others who preceded him.

King brings his own, long-established, soulful touch to Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” Smith’s “Backwater Blues” and the Mississippi Sheiks’ “The World Gone Wrong.” Singing about his love for women who have little use for him in Walker’s “Waiting For Your Call” and Lonnie Johnson’s “My Love Is Down,” King’s voice retains its customary power. And his warm yet tangy single-line guitar solos are once again unmistakably his.

Burnett assembles a great band, including a longtime friend of the blues star, Dr. John. Like King, the New Orleans pianist is an idiosyncratic artist. You just can’t miss his funky flavor in opening track “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.” Veteran drummer Jim Keltner gets down for “Grave,” too, playing a second-line beat. Keltner and and Dr. John are part of a large band that duplicates the group King worked with in the ’50s. Of course, that means a deep horn section.

One Kind Favor opens strongly and mostly remains so, although a sameness in the tempos and arrangements eventually takes a toll, at least when listening to the entire disc in a single sitting. Regardless, King — as well as Burnett and those fine session men — brew a new disc worthy of this long-reigning blues king.