We love Freddie King and his classic DVD — “Freddie King The!!!!Beat 1966” — is an instant classic that deserves your rabid attention and ultimate devotion.


Freddie King was a big man who died too young at age 42 in 1976. 

Here’s Freddie performing “Funny Bone” on the DVD and I love his Elvis pompadour and he’s playing a giant Gibson ES-335 guitar that looks like a toy in his hands.  Freddie was also the only Blues star to wear his guitar strap over his right shoulder — probably because he was too big to have it fit over his left:

There is such joy when Freddie King plays the Blues.  He draws you right into the center of the suffering and makes it okay to move on with your life in spite of the disappointments.

“The Beat” DVD is a jewel in the treasure of the early Blues experience on television and even if you don’t quite understand the why of The Blues yet — you can still watch the DVD and enjoy the Go-Go dancers swinging to Freddie’s beat as you travel back in time to 1966 when the world was right for white boots and Freddie King’s heavy Blues.

8 Comments

  2. Looks like I’m going to have to invest in this treasure, David! I love it! 🙂

  5. True David, I don’t understand the technicality that much but each and every note seems perfect and in-sync, as if Freddie makes the guitar talking…

  6. What’s great about that performance video is Freddie does hit a few bad notes — I love that because that means it is a real, live, performance. It was that TV episode that made him an overnight superstar.

  7. Interesting, because bad/ wrong notes usually hit me hard – this one didn’t…perhaps I missed it.
    Whatever, if someone can sound that gorgeous with a few wrong notes, so be it!

  8. At 1:09 around the full stop he sort of hits a wrong note and then corrects it — then right at the end of the song he is just a little bit flat, but recovers the same way. His quick smile each time as he rights the notes are visual clues.

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