Beyond that, this is something that has become increasingly rare, a live blues recording where the music is played for blues people, African American working class and middle class blues people in an urban center. This all about singing and swinging and jiving and talking to the audience and the audience talking back.

When I was in Mississippi in the mid 1960s doing civil rights work, I met Blues People who loved BB King who didn't know that he played the guitar. The expression always was and still is 'BLUES SINGER," not blues guitarist. He sang the blues the way they needed to listen to and in a Blues People venue the folks will talk back to him too.

My favorite, classic moment of the blues dialog here is in "It's my own fault baby" where Riley sings "I gave you seven children, and now you want to give 'em back." All the sistas in the audience scream. Gruffer sounds came from the men.

What is essential to blues performance for BLUES PEOPLE is the constant dialog between the singer and the audience that is the heart of the native blues experience. The dialog isn't about the impeccable guitar playing on this record, or the totally righteous playing of the band, or even the fine voice of Riley B. King here, but it is about what the words the lyrics speak to the lives of the audience, and what the audience responds to the singer. That's the center of blues, not heavy guitar licks that the post-folk-post rock blues fan thinks is the essence of heavy blues.

It's a shame the audience for the blues has almost disappeared, that blues stars no longer play in big "Chitlin' Circuit" theaters like the Regal, the Apollo, the Howard, the old non hippie Fillmore, or that you can't see Riley or Bobby Blue Bland in smoky little night clubs in the ghetto.

Perhaps, I am showing my age here, because time has to roll on. I am sure that night at the Regal there was someone who could remember when the sistas and their men would be shouting back at things Bessie Smith, or Big Maceo and Tampa Read, Lonnie Johnson, or Memphis Minnie had sung to them from that same stage without the electric instruments.

The real Black blues when it was based among us, was about singing, about commentary. For even the greatest guitarists like Riley, Lonnie Johnson, T-Bone Walker, Johnny Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, the guitar playing and the band were just ways to emphasize how the to talk to audience. This brings to mind that great Betty Carter Album, "The Audience and Betty Carter." This is the Blues People and Riley King talking to each other. That's priceless, get it, and listen to it.

B.B. King's urban blues is quite reminiscent of Albert King's 60s and 70s albums. I sometimes find it too slick, especially his latter-day offerings, but that is not the case with "Live At The Regal", which is a real showcase for King's abilities as a musician and an entertainer.
The band is generally good, although the drummer is much too busy for my taste, particularly on a very mediocre, truncated "Every Day I Have The Blues", which doesn't come close to matching Memphis Slim's stately original. But almost everything else is good or even great, including a passionate "Sweet Little Angel", a soulful "Help The Poor", and a jazzy "How Blue Can You Get".

To me, "Live At The Regal" isn't extraordinary enough or gritty enough to rank alongside the experience of listening to Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf in their prime, but it is still a fine album, and an excellent purchase, especially for those who like their blues urban and a little bit more polished than Wolf or Elmore James or John Lee Hooker. And if you're new to B.B. King, this is a fine place to start.