Little Freddie King: Raucous Blues from the Bywater

Despite posing on the Absolutely the Best cover—and on stages on the festival circuit—in clothes picked off the racks at Soul Train Fashions, don’t be fooled. Little Freddie certainly has lived the blues for the better part of eight decades. A simple, humble, working hard working man, the music he has created is reflected in the way he has lived his life. The chance of Freddie singing about being a big town playboy/hoochie man or singing about his woman walking her walk, or talking her talk, are about as rare as snow on Rampart Street falling on the Fourth of July. Freddie’s milieu once included one too many pints of corn liquor on Saturday night, wrecks on Highway 51, little chance to escape his hard work, or perhaps the cops taking him down to the alimony line. The cover boasts our man as “King of the Gut Bucket Blues,” “Show Stoppin,” and even “World Renowned.” Absolutely the Best collects 13 tracks laid down after Katrina. Here again is “Crack Head Joe,” “Messin’ Around The House,” “Louisiana Train Wreck,” “Run Here Baby, Run,” etc. Freddie’s here with his regular, raucous blues again from the Bywater.