VA - King R&B Box Set [1996] (4 x CDs) | Butterboy

 VA - King R&B Box Set [1996] (4 x CDs)

R&B

Collectors usually encounter The King R&B Box Set the same way they would an old archive drawer, opening it out of curiosity and then realizing how much history sits inside. Issued across four discs and drawing from the catalogue of King Records, the set gathers recordings made between 1945 and 1966, years when rhythm and blues was still defining its shape. The label’s Cincinnati operation recorded, pressed, and shipped its own records under one roof, and that practical spirit carries through the entire box.

The early stretch places the listener right inside the late-forties rhythm and blues circuit. Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown arrive with the kind of punch that once drove jukeboxes and Saturday night dances. Horns push hard, pianos roll underneath, and the recordings feel immediate rather than polished.

As the sequence settles into the mid-fifties, the character of the label broadens. Groups like The Royals bring tight vocal interplay and guitar driven arrangements, while Hank Ballard adds a tougher rhythmic edge that hints at the rock and soul currents forming around the time. The emotional tone deepens through singers such as Little Willie John, whose recordings show how King’s catalogue moved naturally toward early soul.

Instrumental blues arrives through Freddie King, his guitar lines cutting cleanly through the arrangements. Toward the end, early recordings by James Brown appear not as a grand finale but as a continuation of the sound that had been building across the discs.

CD4 closes in an unusual way. After the final music tracks, the box includes three short interview excerpts featuring King founder Syd Nathan. They are brief, almost offhand conversations, yet they place a human voice behind the label that shaped everything heard before.

Played from beginning to end, the set feels less like a retrospective and more like a long stack of original singles turning on the spindle, each one revealing another corner of the King sound. (B)

My favorite R&B Box set of the last few months... Enjoy

Well heck thats good enough for me  . . . and hey it’s got Fess on it!

Professor Longhair - Topic Rockin' with Fess