Artist	Song
Bobby "Blue" Bland	You've Got Bad Intentions
from I Pity the Fool / The Duke Recordings, Vol. 1 (2007)
Lowell Fulson	Reconsider Baby
from Blue Shadows (1997)
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown	Ain't That Dandy
from Texas Swing (1990)
Ike Turner	Down and Out
from A Mess of Blues (2006)
Freddie King	Rock Me Baby
from Blues On Blues (2006)
Albert King	Drivin' Wheel
from Funky London (2006)
Percy Mayfield	Please Send Me Someone to Love
from Specialty Profiles: Percy Mayfield (2006)
Guitar Slim	The Things That I Used to Do
from The Very Best of 1951-1954 (2008)
Ray Charles	How Long Blues
from Soul Brothers / Soul Meeting (2005)
Buddy Guy	Everyday I Have the Blues
from The Chicago Blues Festival (2007)
Sam Cooke	Pilgrim of Sorrow
from The Last Mile of the Way (2006)
Rufus Thomas	Blues in the Basement
from That Woman Is Poison! (1988)
H-Bomb Ferguson	Leavin' You Tomorrow
from Earwig Music 20th Anniversary Collection (2005)

Comment:

While B.B. reigned supreme, a stageful of soulful songsmiths — even a couple of Kings — shared the spotlight. Here’s a twist: in “You've Got Bad Intentions,” blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland — who (like B.B.) plays his voice like an instrument, but (unlike B.B.) doesn’t [i]play[/i] any instruments — pleads with his baby . . . [i]to stay away[/i], his throat cracking as he offers her a bottle not of perfume, but of poison, for a parting gift. Lowell Fulson, who wrote B.B.’s first real hit (“Three O’Clock Blues”), takes a more traditional route to reconciliation, backed by the sledgehammer rumble of piano and the lowdown honk of baritone sax as he begs his woman to “Reconsider Baby.” And let’s not forget to give props to two [i]other[/i] Kings of blues guitar, Freddie and Albert. While neither crossed over to the mainstream, they set the tone — literally — for dozens of guitar’s latter-day deities in both blues [i]and[/i] rock. In “Drivin’ Wheel,” Albert (who changed his surname from Nelson to King in tribute to B.B.) funkifies the blues, bending and twisting each note of a smoky, slinky lead on his backwards-strung guitar. And Freddie King tears through the roof with his hairy-chested howl on “Rock Me Baby” before closing out the song in a flame-fingered, speaker-scorching finale. From Ray Charles to Sam Cooke and beyond, B.B.’s extended royal family changed the face of R&B.

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