On September 8, 9, and 10, 2011, a prestigious assortment of the globe’s greatest musicians will gather for ELLNORA | The Guitar Festival, situated in the vibrant micro-urban setting of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The biennial event provides an unparalleled mixed-genre experience that features performances from many of today’s most distinguished music-makers in a diverse array already being emulated by other festivals.

The internationally recognized event, which in recent years has emerged as a favorite destination for musicians and true guitar fans from around the world, will feature more than 30 performers drawing from guitar traditions rooted in the US, England, Canada, China, Spain, and Mali.

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, incorporates seven distinctive performance spaces uniquely suited to showcase the event’s impressive array of talent. This year’s festival incorporates nine individually ticketed events, along with twelve free shows and more events being planned.

This year, ELLNORA’s artist roster is headed by Luther Dickinson: member of the North Mississippi Allstars and The Black Crowes and one of Rolling Stone’s “new guitar gods.” Dickinson has been selected to serve as the festival’s artist-in-residence and will collaborate on stage with Grammy Award/W.C. Handy Award-winning contemporary bluesman Alvin Youngblood Hart and influential pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph. Dickinson will also interact with festival-goers and read passages from the soon-to-be-published memoirs of his father, Jim Dickinson.

Robert Randolph is one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, as are English folk-rock legend Richard Thompson and Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo, who will also grace ELLNORA’s stages. The festival will also feature two of DownBeat magazine’s 75 Great Guitarists, who’ll build on the festival’s commitment to film-based projects: Bill Frisell, who’ll perform the stirring score to Bill Morrison’s film in The Great Flood, and Marc Ribot, who’ll accompany the bittersweet 1921 Charlie Chaplin film The Kid. Ribot will also lead a Cuban music tribute in a free set with his band Los Cubanos Postizos.

ELLNORA 2011’s expansive musical palette also includes roots legend Taj Mahal, noted producer/recording artist Daniel Lanois, veteran rock adventurist Adrian Belew, bluegrass/jazz innovator Tony Rice, alt-rock explorers Calexico, noted Malian singer/guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, family music guru Dan Zanes, bluegrass renegades Chris Thile and Michael Daves, contemporary acoustic favorites the Russ Barenberg Trio, string band revivalists the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the experimental sounds of Noveller, and the ambient band Redhooker.

ELLNORA, which bears the name of its venue’s visionary founder, Ellnora Krannert, also provides a vital showcase for some of today’s most prominent female artists, including the incomparable classical guitarist Sharon Isbin; peerless jazz guitarist Sheryl Bailey; Toshi Reagon, Judith Casselberry, and Catherine Russell of BIGLovely; festival favorites Cindy Cashdollar and Rory Block; flamenco guitar virtuoso Marija Temo; and Meng Su and Yameng Wang of the Beijing Guitar Duo.

Originally known as the Wall to Wall Guitar Festival before being rechristened ELLNORA in 2009, the event is organized by Krannert Center’s director, Mike Ross, and his staff, in collaboration with curator and artistic advisor David Spelman, who is also founder/director of the world-renowned New York Guitar Festival. In the years since its debut, ELLNORA has served as a model for other events in the US and around the world.

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ELLNORA | The Guitar Festival 2011 Scheduled Events

Opening Night Party
Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely
Vieux Farka Touré
Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub
Russ Barenberg Trio
Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 6pm
The Opening Night Party features a quadruple bill of Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely, Daniel Lanois’ Black Dub, and Vieux Farka Touré throwing down in the Center’s expansive Lobby and the Russ Barenberg Trio entertaining crowds in the outdoor Amphitheatre. Tented areas, food vendors, interactive digital displays from eDream (Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute), and family-friendly activities complete the first night of the three-day festival.
Lobby and Amphitheatre, $5

The Tony Rice Unit
Friday, September 9, 2011 at noon
The “Jimi Hendrix of bluegrass” helms this riveting acoustic jazz band (Guitar Magazine).
Lobby, Free

Luther Dickinson and Alvin Youngblood Hart
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 4pm
Dickinson is one of Rolling Stone’s New Top 20 Guitar Gods, and Hart is the self-described “cosmic American love child of Howlin’ Wolf and Link Wray.”
Lobby, Free

Chris Thile and Michael Daves
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 5pm
Thile and Daves are bluegrass renegades upholding the catharsis Bill Monroe shot into the music as they pepper tunes with rock chords and classical finesse.
Lobby, Free

Cops with live music by Lee Ranaldo and The Kid with live music by Marc Ribot
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 6:30pm
The classic chase scenes in Buster Keaton’s short film Cops are given textured licks by Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, and the free-wheeling Marc Ribot provides live accompaniment for Charlie Chaplin’s breakthrough 1921 film featuring a charming tramp who bonds with an abandoned child.
Colwell Playhouse, $5-$10

The Sheryl Bailey 3
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 8pm
Sheryl Bailey kicks it off with “blisteringly precise leads,” Gary Versace’s organ urges, and Ian Froman’s drum licks usher this trio on a “communal musical journey” (All about Jazz).
Lobby, Free

Taj Mahal with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Alvin Youngblood Hart
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 9pm
Taj Mahal’s 50 years behind a fret board, a decades-long string band legacy animated by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the fierce tradition bred by Alvin Youngblood Hart converge in a jubilant dance with history.
Tryon Festival Theatre, $10-$45

Sonic Garden: Redhooker
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 10pm
With a Baroque spirit and an experimenter’s daring, Stephen Griesgraber of Slow Six eases Redhooker into a conversation underpinned with patience and hope.
Amphitheatre, Free

Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 11pm
Arsenio Rodriguez—a Cuban guitarist, tres player, and bandleader who died in 1972—left a wealth of tunes for Marc Ribot of Rootless Cosmopolitans and Spiritual Unity to bend into a singular tribute.
Lobby, Free

Beijing Guitar Duo
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 10am
These Peabody Conservatory of Music students have a breadth that encompasses Chinese folk music, classics, and premieres of works by Sergio Assad and Tan Dun.
Lobby, Free

Marija Temo
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 11am
Marija Temo unspools the full essence of flamenco—an art designated by UNESCO as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity—from her hybrid classical-flamenco guitar.
Lobby, Free

Dan Zanes with the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra
Kevin Kelly, music director
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at noon
Former rock star Dan Zanes gets the whole crowd singing along at a “dance-party hootenanny” with the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra (Los Angeles Times).
Tryon Festival Theatre, $5-$12

Bill Frisell with film by Bill Morrison: The Great Flood
Ron Miles, trumpet
Tony Scherr, bass
Kenny Wollesen, drums
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 1:30pm
In its world premiere, this work co-commissioned by Krannert Center touches history and nature through documentary footage of the 1927 Mississippi River deluge and Bill Frisell’s songs that follow the displaced citizens and their music northward through roots music, down-home blues, and R&B.
Colwell Playhouse, $10-$30

Sharon Isbin
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 3pm
Sharon Isbin’s life is one of firsts—the first classical guitarist to receive a Grammy in 28 years, the first guitarist to record with the New York Philharmonic, the first head of the guitar department at the Juilliard School of Music—and she plays with “the precision of a diamond” (Wall Street Journal).
Foellinger Great Hall, $10-$34

Calexico
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 4:30pm
Calexico summons the drama of a sprawling western landscape in music that crosses the borders from indie to country to Latin to jazz.
Tryon Festival Theatre, $10-$30

Rory Block and Cindy Cashdollar
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 5:45pm
Rory Block’s haunting music is just one step removed from the birth of the Delta blues, and Cindy Cashdollar has elegant, contemporary roots slides.
Lobby, Free

Richard Thompson and My Brightest Diamond
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 7pm
My Brightest Diamond roars on songs “personal, reachable, and earthen” (Stylus) as the opener for a solo acoustic performance by the folk-rocking top 20 guitar god Richard Thompson.
Colwell Playhouse, $10-$45

Adrian Belew: Painting with Guitar
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 8:30pm
Frank Zappa says it all about the impressionistic playing of this guitarist with King Crimson, the Talking Heads, David Bowie, Joe Cocker, Nine Inch Nails, and Robert Palmer: “Adrian Belew reinvented the electric guitar.”
Amphitheatre, Free

Robert Randolph and the Family Band with guest Luther Dickinson
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 10pm
One of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, Robert Randolph will whip his band plus jam guest Luther Dickinson into “an innovative fusion of refried boogie, Hendrix wahwah rock, and traditional, Pentecostal ‘sacred steel’ exaltation” (Vibe).
Tryon Festival Theatre, $10-$25

Sonic Garden: Noveller
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 10pm
“An orchestra of one,” Noveller wields feedback, pedals, scissors, an electric bow, and a stadium-size assembly of axe-shredding sounds (NPR).
Amphitheatre, Free

Kevin Breit’s Folkalarm
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 11:30pm
Kevin Breit and Folkalarm rip into ecstatic bluegrass rock to send ELLNORA 2011 off the charts.
Lobby, Free

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SPECIAL FESTIVAL FEATURES

Krannert Coffeehouse

Intermezzo cafe at the north end of the Center’s Lobby will be transformed into a coffeehouse for this year’s festival. Guests can unwind and recharge with the Center’s signature coffee blends, Carnegie deli cheesecake, and daily organic food specials.

Outdoor Food Vendors

Local food vendors will offer everything from appetizers to full meals to desserts in a large tented food area on the west terrace for the Opening Night Party.

The Studio Store

The Studio Theatre, located at the north end of the Center, will become the official festival store, featuring merchandise, sponsor tables, special displays of unusual guitars, digital art by eDREAM, and meet-and-greets with artists.

Sonic Garden

Refresh in an outdoor, tented performance space on the west terrace of the Center. This newly imagined space will resonate with a casual atmosphere for mingling, refueling, and experiencing experimental sounds.

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TICKETS AND INFORMATION

Single tickets go on sale July 9 at 10am.

Festival Pass (includes all nine ticketed events): General 208 / Senior Citizen 170 / Student 105 / University of Illinois Student & Youth 75

Ticket Office Information
Phone: 217/333-6280 or 800/KCPATIX (527-2849)
TTY: 217/333-9714 (for patrons who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or speech-impaired)
Fax: 217/244-7469
Online: KrannertCenter.com and EllnoraGuitarFestival.com
E-mail: kran-tix@illinois.edu

Mail: Krannert Center Ticket Office
500 South Goodwin Avenue
Urbana, Illinois 61801-3788
In person: Krannert Center Ticket Office, 500 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, Illinois, from 10am to 6pm every day.

Town Mountain almost rocked the building strait off  the mountain side when they played at the Gold Hill Inn last night.  Before the show started I spoke t

Concord Music Group will release six new titles in the Original Jazz Classics Remasters series on June 14, 2011. Enhanced by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, generous helpings of bonus tracks (many of them previously unreleased), and new liner notes that provide historical and technical context, the series showcases some of the most pivotal recordings of the past several decades by artists whose influences on the jazz tradition is beyond measure.

The six new titles in the series are:

• Chet Baker: In New York
• Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!
• Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
• Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans: Know What I Mean?
• Bill Evans Trio: Explorations
• Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass: Easy Living
  

“These six releases bring us to 20 titles altogether since the launch of the series in March 2010,” says Nick Phillips, Vice President of Catalog and Jazz A&R at Concord Music Group and producer of the series. “Each occupies an important place in any quality jazz collection.”

Chet Baker: In New York

Recorded in September 1958 for Riverside, Chet Baker’s In New York features saxophonist Johnny Griffin, pianist Al Haig, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. In addition to the half-dozen tracks from the original album, the reissue includes a bonus seventh track — “Soft Winds,” a blues composition written by Benny Goodman and Fletcher Henderson.

The recording provides a glimpse of the trumpeter “coming off a run of popularity, critical praise, and commercial success the likes of which few musicians have known,” according to the new liner notes by Doug Ramsey. By the late ’50s, Baker had won numerous awards throughout the decade for his instrumental work, and was even regarded as a romantic idol for his singing.

“Baker had been somewhat pigeonholed as a West Coast cool jazz artist,“ says Phillips, “but this recording illustrates that he was right at home playing with New York musicians — who dealt with their own stereotype of being harder edged and more aggressive. On this recording, they all seem to meet effortlessly somewhere in the middle.”

Of the ongoing tug-of-war between Baker’s artistic successes and his personal battles with substance abuse, Ramsey adds: “It will be a long time before Chet’s struggles with his demon are forgotten, but one day when the headlines have finally disappeared, the beauty of his music will still be shimmering in the air.”

Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!

Recorded at Contemporary’s studios in Los Angeles in February and March 1958, Ornette Coleman’s Something Else!!! features Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Walter Norris on piano, Don Payne on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The first of two albums that Coleman recorded for Contemporary, Something Else!!! marks the saxophonist’s debut as a leader. “He was a very influential but at times controversial artist,” says Phillips. “Right out of the gate he was doing something that was just so different from what people were used to hearing,” says Phillips.  ”Although structurally-speaking, the music in this recording is based on established song forms, you can hear very clearly that Coleman is starting to break free of the limitations of conventional harmony.”

Neil Tesser writes in his new liner notes that Coleman traced jazz back to its roots to rid the music of its increasingly elaborate harmonic structures and other constraints. “Without the limitations imposed by such harmonic patterns, his band would freely travel into, out of, and between musical keys,” says Tesser. “As Ornette said in the original notes, ‘I think one day music will be a lot freer. The pattern for a tune, for instance, will be forgotten and the tune itself will be the pattern . . .’ When he recorded Something Else!!! that day was still a little ways off. In these performances, you hear him in the last throes of unshackling the past.”

Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco

Recorded on Riverside in October 1959, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco was a sequel of sorts to Thelonious Himself, recorded two years earlier. In addition to the album’s 10 original tracks, the reissue includes an alternate take of “There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie.”

“With Thelonious Alone in San Francisco, Monk proved that his earlier success as a solo artist was not a fluke,” says Tesser in his liner notes for the reissue. “And in rejecting all the ‘rules’  for playing without accompaniment — as he’d rejected so many rules before — Monk expanded the entire concept of the solo piano idiom. Without Monk’s recordings as bedrock, it’s hard to imagine similarly intimate (though otherwise quite different) solo albums that would eventually come from Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea or even McCoy Tyner.”

For as unique as Monk’s style was, “he stayed pretty consistently within that style throughout the remainder of his career,” says Phillips. “That’s not to imply that there was any lack of creativity on his part. Within the unique style that he established, there was so much to explore and develop. But he still sounds unmistakably like Thelonious Monk, no matter what chapter of his career you listen to.”

Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans: Know What I Mean?

Know What I Mean? was recorded between January and March 1961, with bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay supporting the saxophonist and pianist. The reissue includes three bonus tracks that are alternate takes of “Who Cares?,” “Toy” (previously unreleased), and “Know What I Mean?”.

“This album takes two artists who were part of the legendary, historic 1958 Miles Davis Sextet and pairs them together,” says Phillips. “The modal approach that Evans was pioneering in the context of that 1958 group reveals itself in some of the material that he and Cannonball are playing on this album.”

Orrin Keepnews, who produced the original recording sessions, writes in his new liner notes for this OJC Remasters reissue, “One of the many advantages of working with a man like Julian Adderley was that he was totally stubborn about pursuing an idea he believed in. And, quite simply, he thoroughly believed in the validity of an album based on his moving very much in a Bill Evans–influenced direction.”

In his liner notes to the original recording, Joe Goldberg observes that while not all of the selections are ballads, an “aura of relaxation” permeates the recording. “In this instance it can be recognized as simply a matter of four highly skilled artists away from their usual tasks and delighting in one another’s musical company,” he says. “Nothing more really need be said about the results of their meeting than that the feeling of delight comes through.”

Bill Evans Trio: Explorations

Recorded in New York in February 1961 for Riverside, Explorations was the last album this version of the Evans trio would make in a recording studio. Bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian also appear on Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby — both live recordings, released later in 1961 — but LaFaro died in a car accident shortly after the live sessions. This reissue features four bonus tracks, including previously unreleased alternate takes of “How Deep Is the Ocean?” and “I Wish I Knew.”

“Evans’ sound and approach was his own by ’61,” says Ashley Kahn in his new liner notes. “His piano style had fully matured, as had the interplay of the trio . . . Upon entering Bell Sound’s studio on February 2, 1961, producer Orrin Keepnews immediately noted the three had ‘made giant strides towards the goal of becoming a three-voice unit rather than a piano player and his accompanists.’”

What’s more, the disparity of styles between the unreleased alternate takes and their counterparts that made the final cut on the original record “illustrates that jazz masters like these are real improvisers,” says Phillips, “and no two takes are ever going to sound the same — because no two moments in jazz are ever the same.”

Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass: Easy Living

Recorded in Los Angeles in 1983 and 1986, Easy Living was one of a series of Ella Fitzgerald–Joe Pass collaborations on Pablo throughout the ’80s. In addition to the original album’s 15 tracks, the reissue also includes two previously unreleased bonus tracks — alternate takes of “Don’t Be that Way” and “Love for Sale.”

Easy Living and the other collaborations between these two veterans “worked on many levels,” says Tad Hershorn in his liner notes for the reissue. “As her voice aged and deepened, Fitzgerald discovered partial remedies in her phrasing, choices of keys and the pleasing maturity that now enveloped her still youthful voice. Pass was the perfect foil to display her diminishing resources to their best and most emotive advantage. Ella was known to incessantly toy with songs in her restless artistic striving, so one can perceive the music she made with Pass as a direct extension of her creative method. The leanness of their music underscores that even this late in her career, Ella Fitzgerald retained her bonafides as a singer for whom words did matter: not every song was merely a vehicle for her to bat notes out of the park. The allure was in the quiet majestic intimacy that focused an audience’s attention on full absorption of the musings of joy, wistfulness, and melody.”

The level of confidence with which each of these two musicians performs on this recording is hard to miss.  “The fact that Ella could walk into the studio with a bunch of lead sheets,” says Phillips, “and they could do a little rehearsal on the spot, figure out the best key for her, and he could just play it in any key behind her — all of that takes some phenomenal musicianship . . . They have a very conversational, relaxed sensibility about them, and both musicians seem very much at ease performing together and recording together in the studio.”

Lola Danza debuts her project "Janya" at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. this Friday May 13th 2011 at 6pm.

In Sanskrit Janya means to be born and in Korean Janya means around dawn.  Janya was created by four unique musicians-- all derived from Korean descent and all women. The music is a fusion of East and West—the East: Seungmin Cha- Daegeum, Eun Sun Jung- Gayageum and Woonjung Sim- Janggo, the West with Half Korean American Singer Lola Jung Danza. Something shamanic and magical exists between the four musician women and so-- Janya was born… around dawn.

They will also premier their work from their new album entitled “Janya” recorded at Bill Laswell's studio. They will have the music available exclusively at the Kennedy Center on Friday, May 13th and it will be released worldwide this summer on Evolver Records and also on a Korean label soon TBA.

You can also watch the Kennedy Center performance of Janya "live" at http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/live/

Please visit www.LolaDanza.com for more information.

Concord Music Group has assembled three new titles in its ongoing Definitive series, one of which marks the series’ initial foray into CMG’s vast blues catalog. The Definitive Miles Davis on Prestige; The Definitive Bill Evans on Riverside and Fantasy; and The Definitive Albert King on Stax span a total of 60 years and include the music of two monumental figures in jazz and an equally influential figure in the blues. Each of the two-CD collections is set for release on April 5, 2011.

The two dozen tracks of The Definitive Miles Davis on Prestige follow the creative evolution of the most revered trumpeter in the annals of jazz. Spanning the first half of the 1950s, the collection captures Miles at the beginning of his breakthrough to mainstream appeal, according to the liner notes by music journalist and historian Ashley Kahn.

“The purpose of this collection is to deliver a full, definitive overview of that very special period in Miles’s career,” says Kahn. “Its focus covers the nearly six-year period when the trumpeter was signed exclusively to Prestige. Disc 1 offers the best of his 1951 to ’56 sessions primarily as a leader of various ad hoc all-star ensembles. Disc 2 provides a generous sampling of Miles the bandleader, in ’55 and ’56, at the helm of one of the most groundbreaking groups of the day.”

The collection also chronicles Miles’s dramatic artistic growth over a relatively short time, says Nick Phillips, Concord Music Group’s Vice President of Jazz and Catalog A&R and the producer of the collection. “The years between 1951 and 1956 are not a huge amount of time, but the development by Miles — as a musician and as a bandleader — is pretty astonishing in this period,” says Phillips. “This culminates in what ended up being one of the most legendary groups in jazz, the Miles Davis Quintet, featuring John Coltrane.”

The Definitive Bill Evans on Riverside and Fantasy tracks more than two decades of recordings by a highly influential figure in jazz piano. “It would be difficult to think of a major jazz pianist emerging after 1960 who did not take Bill Evans as a model,” says jazz journalist Doug Ramsey, who wrote the liner notes for the 25-song collection that begins in the mid-1950s and ends in 1977. “Indeed, many seasoned pianists who preceded Evans altered their styles after hearing him.”

What’s more, “Evans had a profound effect on how musicians play jazz and how listeners hear it,” says Ramsey. “He is so much a part of the jazz atmosphere that many musicians — regardless of instrument — who came of age in the 21st century are not conscious that his concepts helped form them.”

The collection also gives proper attention on the second disc to Evans’s Fantasy-era recordings of the mid-1970s, says Phillips, who also produced the Evans collection. “Because the Riverside sessions are so acclaimed and so legendary, the Fantasy tracks are often overshadowed,” he says. “But in listening to this collection, you realize that Evans was still creating some amazing recordings throughout the Fantasy period with some high-caliber musicians, like Eddie Gomez, Kenny Burrell, Lee Konitz, Tony Bennett, Ray Brown, and Philly Joe Jones.”

The Definitive Albert King on Stax follows 15 years worth of recordings — from 1961 to 1975, plus a final track from 1984 — by a bluesman who’d spent the early part of his career playing to an African-American fan base in the roadhouses and theaters of the chitlin’ circuit. But by the latter half of the 1960s, the genre “was now attracting the rapt interest of young white listeners, their sensibilities opened wide by the muscular, in-your-face blues rock of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and Jimi Hendrix,” says roots music historian Bill Dahl in his liner notes for the collection. “These new converts were gravitating to the best the idiom had to offer. No single blues guitarist made a more stunning impact during that tumultuous timeframe than Albert King.”

“For as paradoxical as it might sound, you could make the case that Albert King was a cheery blues guy,” says Chris Clough, Concord’s manager of catalog development and producer of the Albert King collection. “He had that wry smile, and he often smoked a pipe. He was always well dressed and dapper. He was genuinely interested in putting on a show for his audience, and that sensibility comes through on these tracks.”

Dahl suggests that the years between 1966 and 1975 were a “Golden Decade” for King. “He was with Stax that entire time,” he says, “right up to the Memphis label’s unfortunate demise, cutting one enduring blues classic after another as he scaled the charts over and over again. In the process, King deeply influenced countless up-and-coming blues axemen, even though the ringing licks he coaxed out of his futuristic Gibson Flying V were all but impossible to accurately recreate.”