Freddie King – Going Down
Freddie King – Palace Of The King
Freddie King – Keys To The Highway
With the return of Eastbound & Down, and the return of its dysfunctional anti-hero Kenny Powers, it makes good sense to post up this album from Freddie King. “Eastbound” uses the opening of King’s “Going Down” to great effect (as if the show wasn’t cool enough on the merits of Danny McBride’s work as “KFP”, Wayne Kramer of the MC5 is the music director!) in the opening credits and seeing it there reminded me of what a powerful and distinctive song it truly is.
Of the three “Kings” of the blues, Freddie King is probably the most underrated, producing a few hits (“Hideaway” perhaps the biggest), but never reaching quite the same heights as B.B & Albert King. But sweet Jesus, Holy Christ almighty did he and the crew hit the ball way out of the park with “Going Down” on this album, his debut for Leon Russell’s Shelter Records in 1971.
Under the direction of Don Nix and Russell, King fronts a band that includes Donald “Duck” Dunn from Booker T & the MGs and two drummers on virtually all tracks, for that extra bit of bottom. I’m not sure I’ve heard a better, more driving, funkier blues song in my life than “Going Down”. There is simply no way to control the head nodding that this song produces driven by those twin drummers, that furious pounding on the piano by Russell, that underlining fuzz and those cutting notes from Freddie King. Back in the early 1990s when I used to host a blues show on Album 88 called “Crossroads” this was one of the few tracks that I simply had to play every couple of months, its just such a monster of a track, it needs to be heard and heard as loud as possible.
In addition to badly needing a reminder of just how exceptional “Going Down” is, I was also reaquainted with a couple of other funky tracks from this LP. “Palace Of The King” sounds almost like a Funkadelic production from the same era, with upbeat rhythm punctuated by the fuzz guitar as Freddie runs down a story of how much the world loves his blues, but no place is quite like home in Texas. “Keys To The Highway” has a slower tempo, but remains heavy thanks to those twin drums and those slicing guitar lines from King.
Cheers,
Michael