40 tracks · 121 min
2005 Release in celebration of B.B. King's 80th birthday. Virgin released the double-disc set Original Greatest Hits in September of 2005 -- the week B.B. turned 80. Since there have been so many comps of King's long career, all bearing titles similar to Original Greatest Hits, it's easy to assume that this collection is yet another recycling of the familiar B.B. standards from the late '60s and '70s, but that's not the case at all. Instead, this 40-track collection is one of the first American reissues to offer a comprehensive survey of his recordings for RPM and Kent in the '50s and early '60s (both sides of his debut 45 for Bullet, "Miss Martha King"/"When Your Baby Packs Up and Goes," are added to the end of the collection for good measure). While the material has been reissued extensively overseas, most notably on the U.K. label Ace, which has offered an exhaustive overview of the majority of his RPM and Kent sides, there has never been a good U.S. comp of this material until this deceptively plain-titled Original Greatest Hits. Over the course of two discs, the original single versions of such B.B. standards as "3 O'Clock Blues," "Every Day I Have the Blues," "You Upset Me, …
