Live albums are a crapshoot, aren't they? You can just imagine the conversation, "Hey, you can't capture how good you are in the studio, let's make a live album and get the real you recorded, the one the producers and engineers..."

Does it work, though? Used to be, it was a sign the band was about to break up. Or change labels, management, something, because the live album seemed like the last ditch effort, throw something out there and fill the channels, fulfill the contract, whatever.

There were, of course, exceptions. Frampton Comes Alive, Live at Budokhan, Live Bullet, Eagles Live. Hell, the entire Unplugged series relies on the fact that a good live recording can be, should be, magic. Still, at least for pop and rock acts, the live album is, I think, more looking for gems.

One thing seems for sure. For rock and pop acts, finding someone who can do live albums across decades is a true rarity.

Jazz, and blues, well now. That seems like a different story altogether. Duke Ellington Live at Newport, Count Basie in London or at Newport, Ella Fitzgerald (I love Ella's small band live recordings, she's playing in those settings in a way that is unique for her; like her recordings with Louis Armstrong these trio and small group live sessions seem more intimate than the big band and studio work), Sinatra's live recordings have their own literature. Coltrane, Dizzie, Parker, Miles, Brubeck and Mulligan and Chet. Seek out ye wandering soul, there are balms for thy wounds here.

And then there's B.B. King. The king of the blues. His live recordings, his own released albums span some forty years of work. From the master at work to the gentleman player.

Cook County Jail and the Bobby Bland pairings were soundtracks to my youth. My mother's albums, but I played them just as much or more than she did. I may not have been there physically, but I could be there in those magic moments whenever I needed to be.

San Quantin, the Apollo, and then Ole Miss... those are the albums (cd's ok) where I consciously chose B.B. King as being my music, not just my parents'. It happened when San Quentin came out; that one I bought as soon as I was aware of it, just to see what the king sounded like these days, when I was a broke teenager never to be able to afford to catch him live but I could scrape together the ten bucks to get the cd and dream.

I bought Ole Miss and Apollo just as soon after that as I could. Apollo was like San Quentin and the others; Ole Miss was something else altogether. Even by double album standards Ole Miss was a monster of an album, in terms of length and number of recordings. In terms of the time in those concerts.

For my generation, seeing Lenny Kravitz was... like going to a revival meeting. Three hours of worship at the altar of all that is performance in its purest, sexiest, most intimate and rocking form. Too young for Prince (there's another story for another time, I was too broke to get tickets when he came through and played Hofheinz Pavillion, a friend was supposed to get tickets but then backed out when another in our social circle got involved. I stood outside the Pavillion for hours waiting for someone who never showed, watching everyone going into the concert and feeling like shit.), I saw Metallica and Guns N' Roses at the Astrodome, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam in that magic moment right before Ten came out (Fitzgerald's if you're familiar), No Doubt in front of close to half a million lunatics at Texas Motor Speedway and Gwen had every last soul in the palm of her hand... Lenny for three hours anytime anywhere was something else entirely.

B.B. King at Ole Miss gave me the first taste that he, and oh that band, had that same magic touch. That when the drums and horns fired up and the hype man stepped up and gave the crowd what they knew, what they'd paid their money to see and hear... that they were in the hands of the master, the king.

San Quentin is the album I return to, when I just want to hear the power and the music. And remember what it felt like, I guess, to discover that someone I'd known since I knew what music was had something far more yet to give to me.