Freddie King
(1934-1976)
“I used to listen to Freddie King a lot then,
and that drive he had in his early days stayed on my mind.”
Albert Collins to Ellen Griffith, Guitar Player, August 1979The drive that so impressed Collins is amply evident in
this 1972 performance from Sweden. King’s near-disco era
appointments (platform shoes, bell bottoms and a shirt collar
that looks like it could take flight) belie his small town Texas
roots. Raised in Gilmer, Texas, King was surrounded by guitars
in his youth. “We always kept two or three guitars around our
house in Texas all the time,” King told Mike Leadbitter (“Madi-
son Nite Owl,” Blues Unlimited October-November 1974).
“They all played—my mother, my uncles...lots of guys played
around there.” However, Chicago, where King’s maternal grand-
mother lived, was where King began playing in earnest. His
family moved there in December 1950, and Freddie soon found
work in a steel mill. At night, he would sneak into blues clubs
and absorb the sounds of the burgeoning Chicago blues scene.
“I was playing like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters when
I got to Chicago,” King told Leadbitter, “but Jimmy Rogers and
Eddie Taylor were different. They really inspired me. I stayed
around them all the time. Every time they look up, I’m com-
ing. If I couldn’t catch one, I’d catch the other. They’d say,
Photo by Walt M. Casey Jr.