Freddie King (born Fred King on September 3, 1934, and died on December 28, 1976), also known as Freddy King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar," along with Albert King and B. B. King. None of these musicians were related to each other. Freddie King was known for his deep and strong voice and his unique way of playing the guitar. His music greatly influenced electric blues and inspired many later blues guitarists.
Freddie King was born in Gilmer, Texas. He began learning the guitar at age six from his mother and uncle. When he was a teenager, he moved to Chicago, where he formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. After being turned down by Chess Records, Freddie King signed with Federal Records. His first big success came with the songs "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and the instrumental "Hide Away," which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. "Hide Away" later became a widely recognized song in the blues genre. Freddie King's guitar style was influenced by Texas blues and Chicago blues. His album Freddy King Sings showed his singing talent and included the chart hits "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" and "I'm Tore Down." Later, he worked with producers who focused on rhythm and blues and rock music. He was one of the first blues musicians to perform with a band that included members from different racial backgrounds.
Freddie King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 by the band ZZ Top and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His song "Hide Away" was listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's collection of "500 Songs that Shaped Rock." In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 19th in its list of the 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Biography
Fred King was born in 1934 to Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was 6 years old, his mother and his uncle taught him to play the guitar. In 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago.
In 1952, King started working in a steel mill. In the same year, he married Jessie Burnett, another person from Texas. Together, they had seven children.
Soon after moving to Chicago, King began visiting nightclubs on the South Side, where he listened to blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson. King formed his first band, the Every Hour Blues Boys, with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while working at the steel mill, the 18-year-old King sometimes played with other bands, such as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953, King recorded with Earl Payton's Blues Cats for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s continued, King played with musicians who worked with Muddy Waters and other important Chicago blues artists, including guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr., Eddie Taylor, and Hound Dog Taylor; bassist Willie Dixon; pianist Memphis Slim; and harmonicist Little Walter.
In 1956, King made his first record as a leader for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy," a song he performed with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a song King sang himself. Both tracks included guitar work by Robert Lockwood Jr., who also played on other recordings by Little Walter during this time.
King was not chosen for auditions at Chess Records, a top blues label that featured artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. People said King’s singing style was too similar to B.B. King. Meanwhile, a new blues scene was growing on the West Side of Chicago, with nightclubs and new record companies. Willie Dixon, a bassist and producer who had a disagreement with Chess Records in the late 1950s, invited King to record for Cobra Records. However, these recordings were never released. During this time, King became one of the most important musicians on the West Side. He played with Magic Sam and may have played uncredited guitar on some of Sam’s songs for Mel London’s Chief and Age labels.
In 1959, King met Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for King Records in Cincinnati. In 1960, King signed with Federal Records, a subsidiary of King Records. King recorded his first single for Federal Records on August 26, 1960: "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (backed with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling," credited as Freddy King). During the same session at King Studios in Cincinnati, King also recorded the instrumental "Hide Away." The next year, "Hide Away" reached number five on the R&B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart, a major achievement for a blues instrumental at a time when blues was not widely known to white audiences. King combined parts of songs by Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy McCracklin, and others to create "Hide Away." The song’s name came from Mel’s Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on Chicago’s West Side. Willie Dixon later claimed King had recorded "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but no such version has been found. "Hide Away" became a classic blues song.
After the success of "Hide Away," King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including "The Stumble," "Just Pickin'," "Sen-Sa-Shun," "Side Tracked," "San-Ho-Zay," "High Rise," and "The Sad Nite Owl." They also recorded songs with vocals, but many were released as instrumentals on albums.
During his time with Federal Records, King toured with famous R&B artists like Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.
King’s contract with Federal Records ended in 1966, by which time he had moved back to Dallas from Chicago. In 1967, he went on his first overseas tour. His work was noticed by King Curtis, a saxophonist and producer who had recorded a version of "Hide Away" in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic Records in 1968, leading to two albums: Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for Atlantic’s Cotillion Records.
In 1969, King hired Jack Calmes as his manager. Calmes helped King perform at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, where he played alongside Led Zeppelin and others. This led to King signing with Shelter Records, a new label started by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell. Shelter Records recorded King at The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and treated him as an important artist. King was flown to Chicago’s former Chess Studios to record the album Getting Ready…, with top musicians like Leon Russell. Three albums were made during this time, including blues classics and new songs like "Going Down," written by Don Nix.
King performed with famous rock bands like Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song "We're an American Band" mentions King in the lyrics). He played for a younger, mostly white audience, often with white drummer Gary Carnes, for three years before signing with RSO Records. In 1974, King recorded Burglar, with Tom Dowd producing the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami. The song featured guitarists Eric Clapton and George Terry, drummer Jamie Oldaker, and bassist Carl Radle. Mike Vernon produced other tracks on Burglar and another album, Larger than Life, for the same label. Vernon also brought in musicians like Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group to work with King.
King toured constantly, spending nearly 300 days a year on the road. In 1976, he began suffering from stomach ulcers. His health quickly worsened, and he died on December 28 from complications related to his illness and acute pancreatitis at the age of 42.
People who knew King said his early death was caused by stress, a lifestyle of heavy partying,
Musical style
B.B. King had a natural way of playing guitar, often using the sound of open strings from Texas blues and the loud, intense tones from West Side, Chicago blues. His mix of these two styles made his music feel more modern compared to many Chicago bands who still played music from the 1950s. He became friends with younger blues musicians. In his early career, he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. Later, he used several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including the ES-335, ES-345, and ES-355. He played with a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick.
Legacy
On September 3, 1993, the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, officially declared the day "Freddie King Day." This honor is given to important figures from Texas, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly. Freddie King was added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. He also ranked 15th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
In the early 1960s, Freddie King recorded several instrumental songs, such as "Hideaway," "San-Ho-Zay," and "The Stumble." These songs were used by surf music bands because they had a similar sound to surf guitar, which is instrumental music that people can dance to. One band that mixed R&B and surf music sometimes included Jerry Garcia. Later, Garcia said that when he began playing electric guitar again with the Warlocks, he learned many ideas from Freddie King's music. A 1961 album by Freddie King, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King, was later renamed Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release.
Music critic Cub Koda said Freddie King influenced guitarists like Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lonnie Mack. Michael Corcoran noted that King combined the best parts of Chicago and Texas blues styles. This made him a major inspiration for British blues musicians in the 1960s, including Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. In 1985, Clapton said that Freddie King's 1961 song "I Love the Woman" introduced him to the electric lead-guitar style with bent notes, which inspired him to pursue music. In a later interview, Clapton described King's guitar playing on "I Love the Woman" as "a complete kind of ecstasy" and said he felt it was something he would never reach but wanted to keep trying. Rolling Stone magazine later wrote that Clapton shared his admiration for King with other British guitarists, such as Peter Green, Jeff Beck, and Mick Taylor, who were deeply influenced by King's guitar tone and melodies in songs like "The Stumble," "I'm Tore Down," and "Someday, After Awhile."
Freddie King was one of many African-American blues musicians who helped shape the British blues scene in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau said King's connection to Britain helped him become famous as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In MusicHound Rock (1996), Gary Graff wrote that King was not only known for his guitar playing but also for his strong singing style. His lasting influence ensured his recognition as one of the great blues musicians after World War II.
For listeners interested in Freddie King's music, MusicHound Rock recommended the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King, which highlights his recordings for King Records from 1961 to 1966. It also suggested the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974, which includes a powerful concert recording and rare acoustic performances. However, the guide noted that Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were not recommended because they lacked strong musical support and guitar work. John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also praised the Electric Ballroom recording and recommended Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (1976) as better examples of King's live performances compared to his less impressive studio recordings from that time.
In his only review of a Freddie King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–1973 recordings were "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies," with King's voice unclear and his guitar playing unoriginal. However, Joe Viglione, in a review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic, called it "entertaining and concise" and said it was a solid representation of an important musician who was both enjoyable and historically significant.