An Old Blues Artist Is Easing Away : ‘It’s Time to Quit,’ Says Famed Guitarist Albert King, 67

Albert King may be wielding his Flying V guitar on an Orange County stage for the last time Friday at the Coach House.

In a brief interview before his performance at Trancas in Malibu last weekend, King confirmed persistent rumors that he plans to give up active performing.

“I semi-retired this year, but I’m going to do it completely next year,” said King, 67. “Maybe I’ll come out . . . maybe . . . and do a gig once a year. It’s time to quit--I’ll miss the younger people who really enjoy hearing me play, but I gotta look out for my health.”

What about the restlessness known to affect musicians accustomed to constant touring once they leave the blues highway?

“I’m going to miss it, but if I feel like that, I’ll just jump in my car and ride somewhere where somebody’s playing and listen to them,” King said with a laugh.

That turn of events would bring the road for King full circle. Born in Indianola, Miss., he got his first exposure to music sneaking into places to hear some of the early giants in the field.

“I used to slip in and listen to guys like Mercy Dee, Howlin’ Wolf, Blind Lemon (Jefferson), and the original Sonny Boy (Williamson)--not Rice Miller,” King said. “I was just a little kid then, and I knew I wanted to play music.

“I listened to all types of music but when T-Bone Walker came out with his style--the sustained notes he used to play, the singin’ notes--I said, ‘This is it.’ I tried to play like him, and I added my little thing because I was playing left-handed.”

King played a regular right-handed guitar and, since the strings were upside down, he had to develop his own instrumental techniques. That guitar style became King’s trademark and also a major formative influence on scores of guitarists.

B.B. King and the late Muddy Waters may be better known to the public, but Albert rivals them as a blues artist who made an indelible impression on the contemporary blues sound. Rock heroes from ‘60s demigods Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to present-day idols Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray have cited his stinging tone, economy and ability to squeeze the maximum emotion from each precisely articulated note.

King played drums on some early Jimmy Reed sessions and made his first records for small, St. Louis-based labels starting in 1953. He cut five songs for Chess in 1961 and enjoyed his first R&B-chart; hit the following year with “Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong” for King Records. It wasn’t until 1966, when King hooked up with Stax’s Memphis soul sound, that his recording career took off.

Backed by Booker T. & the MG’s on his early Stax sessions, King broke through with a landmark blend of Southern soul rhythms and piercing blues guitar on his “Born Under a Bad Sign” album in 1967. He recorded a number of classics--”Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Blues Power,” “Crosscut Saw,” “I’ll Play the Blues for You”--during his eight years with the label.

King also radically expanded his audience by stepping onto the Fillmore rock circuit. His first San Francisco appearance was on a bill with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the move to the rock arena was captured on the superb “Live Wire/Blues Power” album recorded live at the Fillmore West in 1968. King’s ability to spin off long, emotion-charged guitar solos filled with unflagging invention fit the jam-happy character of the era’s music like a glove.

After leaving Stax, he enjoyed some moderate late ‘70s R&B-chart; success for Tomato Records. But King remained a fixture on the live blues club and festival circuit, including several appearances at the annual Long Beach Blues Festival.

His most recent albums--the Grammy-nominated “California ‘83” and “I’m in a Phone Booth, Baby”--on Fantasy showed that the southpaw stinger has lost none of the emotive power in his plaintive singing or biting guitar playing. The label also reissued, in the past two years, his Stax-era “I Wanna Be Funky” and the previously unreleased “Blues at Sunrise” recorded live at Switzerland’s Montreux Festival in 1973.

“I got another album fixing to come out of new stuff I recorded a month and a half ago,” King said. “But, see, if you keep recording, people want you to come out and play, so I don’t want to record anymore. I got enough stuff in the can that’s never been released to last me the rest of my life.”

Albert King plays Friday at 9 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $16.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.