The very first blues album I ever purchased was Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign. Forty-two-years later, I still have it and play it. It’s been through three years at a distant college, a move here from Canada, a divorce and Katrina. That album is on the same podium with Bobby “Blue” Bland’s Two Steps from the Blues and The Best of Muddy Waters. This two-CD reissue contains several tracks from that album and so much more.

The album opens with a ringer, “Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong,” a song that predates King’s Stax tenure, but was his first hit from 1961. Most of the best tracks from Born Under a Bad Sign (the first Stax album) are represented, including the brilliant “Laundromat Blues,” “Crosscut Saw” and the title track. On these recordings, King was capably backed by Booker T. and the MGs and the Memphis Horns, but what made these recordings stand out was King’s unconventional guitar playing—he played a right-handed guitar left-handed—and he always sounded pissed off. While the 1970s brought about drastic changes in music, King stuck with what worked for him.

There are several covers here on disc but they’re done King’s way, and the album includes his Stax Christmas classic “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’,” which was recently covered on an episode of Treme. If you want to hear some of the best blues from the 1960s and 1970s, be on the lookout for this one.