With much of the set having been released across five monthly EPs starting last fall, we’ve already told you, well, raved, about a good number of the tracks off the Joe Bonamassa/Josh Smith-produced B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, including some from Buddy Guy, Bobby Rush, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi with Michael McDonald, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, George Benson, Larry McCray, D.K. Harrell, Jimmie Vaughan, and more. But having the set’s full 32 tracks together in one place really helps show just how impressive and herculean of a project this was, recruiting 40+ guests–from legends like Guy, Rush, Benson, Vaughan, Chaka Khan, Eric Clapton, Ivan Neville and Paul Rodgers to rising stars such as Harrell, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Marcus King–to provide their own interpretations of tracks from throughout the King of the Blues’ career.
A fantastic tribute to one of the greatest bluesmen of all time, this is a collection any blues fan is definitely going to want to hear and own, regardless of whether you were a fan of B.B. King’s or are just looking for a good collection featuring dozens of the top artists in blues and blues-rock today, including a fair number of relative youngsters.
Bonamassa contributes guitar on every track, while co-producer Smith plays on all except one, with most of songs also incorporating horns in addition to the backing band of bass, drums, and keyboards/organ, including Reese Wynans on about a third of the tunes.
While tracks like Buddy Guy’s take on “Sweet Little Angel”, Michael McDonald, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks’ “To Know You is to Love You”, Bobby Rush’s “Why I Sing the Blues” (with Rush on both vocals and harmonica) and George Benson’s “There Must Be a Better World Somewhere” are every bit as great as you’d expect from those masters, some of the other very best numbers of the set come from such names as Jimmy Hall (vocals) and Larry Carlton (guitar), with a soulful, swaying “Sweet Sixteen”; Larry McCray (vocals and guitar) on “When It All Comes Down (I’ll Still Be Around)”; Shemekia Copeland (vocals), Myles Kennedy (vocals) and Slash (guitar) on a grooving “When Love Comes To Town”; D.K. Harrell (vocals and guitar) with a swinging “Every Day I Have The Blues”, and Bonamassa himself, with a most appropriate take on “Playin’ With My Friends”.
A “The Thrill is Gone” that features Eric Clapton on guitar and Chaka Khan on vocals is one of a trio of tracks to include violins and cello, along with Gary Clark Jr.’s (vocals and guitar) “Chains and Things” and Ivan Neville’s (vocals and clavinet) “Ghetto Woman,” also one of several songs here that sound so natural a fit that they could easily be mistaken for an artist original if you didn’t know better, with Jimmie Vaughan’s (vocals and guitar) “Watch Yourself” being another such example.
The set also serves as a terrific reminder of how great King’s songs were, from slower numbers like the soulful “Three O’ Clock Blues” (Marc Broussard), “It’s My Own Fault” (Kim Wilson), “Night Life” (Paul Rodgers) and “Don’t Answer The Door” (Marcus King on vocals and guitar), a jazzy “I’ll Survive” (Keb’ Mo’), and the crooning, B.B.-like “Please Accept My Love” (John Nemeth) to a gritty “How Blue Can You Get” (Warren Haynes on vocals and guitar), with its expressive, nearly two-minute intro, and soaring “Ain’t Nobody Home” (Jade MacRae on vocals and Robben Ford on guitar), with Mahalia Barnes and Karen Lee Andrews helping to provide some exquisite background vocals, to faster-moving numbers such as a shuffling “Bad Case Of Love” that features the smoky vocals of Joanne Shaw Taylor along with some smoking guitar, the lightly swinging “Paying The Cost To Be The Boss” (Christone “Kingfish” Ingram on vocals and guitar), a driving “Let The Good Times Roll” (Kenny Wayne Shepherd on vocals and guitar, with Noah Hunt also on vocals), and the bursting “You Upset Me Baby” (Chris Cain on vocals and guitar).
We’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention the “Better Not Look Down” that closes the CD and digital versions of the album, which features Kirk Fletcher joining Bonamassa and Smith on guitar as Guy and others take turns on vocals and a number of guest artists talk about the first time they heard, saw, or met the King of the Blues. Tracks from Larkin Poe, Trombone Shorty and Eric Gales, Dion, Train and Chris Buck, and others round out the set.
Not every track here will blow you away, but many of them–and the set in its entirety–certainly will. About the only things that might have made this collection any better would have been the inclusion of “You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now” among its tracks (with “Rock Me Baby” also noticeably absent, although that may be because it’s so oft covered otherwise) and guest appearances from living longtime former King bandmates like drummer Tony “TC” Coleman or James “Boogaloo” Bolden to further connect the project to King. But that’s not to say that we won’t be listening frequently to all the great stuff that Bonamassa and Smith did manage to include here, on what is truly a tribute fit for a King.