 
Chester Rosson (July 1997) One of the great Kings of the Blues, along with Albert and B.B, Freddie King had a guitar style much admired and imitated by other bluesmen and rock stars of the sixties and seventies. Although he left Texas at the age of sixteen and built his career in the blues center of Chicago, King returned to Texas to live in Dallas in 1963, and in 1971 he made the first major live album recorded in Austin at the Armadillo World Headquarters. Encouraged by his mother and uncle Leon King, Freddie learned to play guitar when he was six years old. He learned from the recordings of Lightnin' Hopkins and T-Bone Walker as well. By the age of 16 he was ready for the nightclubs of Chicago. There he learned from some of the masters of the Chicago Blues, including Playboy Taylor and Robert Lockwood. He began to make a living by his music in 1958, playing with the Sonny Cooper Band and Earlee Payton's Blues Cat, and Smokey Smothers. In 1960 he formed his own band and went on tour in the U.S. and Europe. During the sixties he recorded on the King/Federal and Cotillion labels such classics as "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and "I'm Tore Down." In 1970 he signed on with Shelter Records, a label associated with rock and blues songwriter-performer Leon Russell. Getting Ready for Shelter was one of his best album efforts, and it made his work known as a Texas master of the blues guitar. He opened the new Armadillo World Headquarters in 1971 and came back frequently for fundraisers to keep the doors open on that classic venue. Freddie King died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1976 at the age of 43, shortly after an appearance in Dallas. He is buried at Hillcrest Memorial Cemetery in Dallas. |
||||
|
||||
read about this period
