Legendary blues musician BB King passed away on May 14th 2015 at the age of 89.
When it comes to the blues, fewer names are more famous. Across a career spanning over seven decades, Mr Riley B King became a legend, a key figure in reshaping the blues from its Delta roots into the full scale electric sound with which it has endured musical fashions.
At Christmas 2014, the BBC broadcast an updated Genesis documentary ‘Together & Apart’. It had been some time since the previous feature length document of the band had been pieced together – 1992’s excellent ‘A History’ – and so, any focus on the much neglected Ray Wilson era and the ‘Calling All Stations’ album was anticipated by fans. As well as including interviews with the five members of the classic 70s era in the same room, this was to be event television for the Genesis fan.
Real Gone’s first Queen poll, looking at the band’s 70s work, was a roaring success. Hot on its heels, we ran a second poll asking you to vote for your favourite songs from the second phase of their much-celebrated career. While similarly successful, the second poll showed how much love fans have for band’s singles – in this case, far more so than the album material.
There’s no denying the quality of Queen’s hits between 1980-1991. Aside from those from the “marmite” album ‘Hot Space’ (1982), the band achieved wall-to-wall greatness in the singles department during their stadium years; their singles still in regular radio rotation the world over. …And fans clearly still love them.
Over the past week, Real Gone has been running a poll covering Queen’s seventies output. We knew the idea would get people talking, since Queen are one of the few bands that could be considered a global phenomenon. We had no idea when it began whether the well known hits would dominate, or whether the long-standing fans would speak out for some of those lesser heard album cuts. [Full results here.]
Almost 1,300 votes were cast, and one thing is clear. People still absolutely adore ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It’s so entrenched within the Queen legacy, it’s become almost unavoidable. Although there’s a vast amount of great material recorded by the band between 1973-78, it was guaranteed a high placing, but it secured the top spot within hours and then held onto a fairly commanding lead. It’s easy to dismiss the song as overplayed, but if we are able to step aside from that fact for a moment, it’s still a fantastically crafted piece of music, unlike anything in rock music before, and – a couple of other Queen numbers aside – still stands out from so much since.
In recent years, the market has almost been flooded with Queen compilations. We’ve seen ‘Absolute Queen’, three volumes of ‘Deep Cuts’ and most recently ‘Queen Forever’ a collection of ballads with a couple of unreleased bits to tempt the die-hard fan.
The band really pleased fans when they issued the complete ‘Live At The Rainbow ’74’ show, a live set capturing the very early Queen on fire. This release has led to some speculation as to whether more live sets will be issued. We all know that excellent quality footage from Hammersmith 1975 and Hyde Park 1976 exists in the Queen vault, but some fans are currently speculating about an expanded reissue of the classic ‘Live Killers’ disc…