Personnel includes: B.B. King (vocals, guitar); Maya Angelou (vocals); Billy Butler (guitar); Lawrence Burdine (alto saxophone); Vernon Slater, Johnny Board, Bobby Forte (tenor saxophone); Barney Hubert (baritone saxophone); Carl Adams, Hobart Dotson, John Browning, Henry Boozier, McKinley Johnson, Kenneth Sands (trumpet); Pluma Davis (trombone); Duke Jethro (organ, keyboards); Leo Lauchie, Louis Satterfield (bass); Sonny Freeman (drums).
Reissue producer: Andy McKaie
Recorded between 1965 and 1968. Includes liner notes by Ritchie York.
Digitally remastered by Erick Labson at MCA Music Media Studios, North Hollywood, California.
Although this collection has "Don't Answer the Door," "Paying the Cost to Be the Boss," and a nice live recut of "Sweet Sixteen" to highly recommend it, this 1968 LP is hardly King's best, and the "electric" part of the title makes it sound like there's an acoustic B.B. King album lurking around somewhere that everyone somehow missed in the last 50-plus decades. To be sure, these are rock-solid performances all recorded between 1965 to 1968, just as King's music was getting slicker and more urban. But this was one of the albums that helped introduce B.B. to a more modern audience (it's gone on to sell over a million copies), heading straight to the timeline of "The Thrill Is Gone" and putting him on the map worldwide. ~ Cub Koda
