Albert King’s ‘In Session’ Offers a Master Class in Respect

As the story goes, Albert King was playing a residency at Antone’s in Austin, Texas, in the mid-1970s. Club owner Clifford Antone, a strong advocate for a young hot-shot guitarist from just outside of Dallas named Stevie Ray Vaughan, was trying to convince King to let the kid sit in with him.

“Nobody asked to sit in with Albert King,” Stevie’s older brother Jimmie Vaughan laughed while recounting the story in the 2023 Vaughan Brothers documentary Brothers in Blues. “Albert was a big, menacing, badass guy. There was nothing you could do if you sat in with Albert King except suck.” Finally, King relented and let the younger Vaughan brother have a moment. That moment turned into the pair jamming on stage for the rest of the night.

Years pass, and as often happens in show business, one star rises while the other fades. Unfortunately for King, the guitarists he had been inspiring for so many years were now reaping the benefits of his indirect tutelage – through his records or watching him perform – while he was no longer a hot commodity. Neither was the blues, for that matter. Outside of a few blues-centric towns, maybe Memphis, certain parts of Chicago, and Austin, blues was old hat by the dawn of the 1980s. MTV gave the youth of America exciting new visuals to match the post-disco, new wave, and dance music beaming into their living rooms.

One of those videos had a pulsating beat, a familiar voice, and a down-and-dirty guitar solo. Not flashy, but soulful. David Bowie‘s “discovery” during the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1982 led to him hiring Stevie Ray Vaughan to perform on the single “Let’s Dance” and its subsequent album the following year.

Just three months after the release of Let’s Dance, Vaughan’s debut, Texas Flood, was released. He turned down Bowie’s invitation to join the tour because he would not be able to promote his own album while doing so. It paid off. By September of 1983, Texas Flood had hit the Top 40 on the Billboard album charts. A blues album was in the Top 40 in the same year that albums such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller dominated pop culture.

On 6 December 1983, CHCH-TV in Ontario, Canada, reunited Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan for the first time since that night at Antone’s almost a decade before. Flanked by Tony Llorens on piano and organ, Gus Thornton on bass, and Michael Llorens on drums, King and Vaughan ran through a set of songs mainly associated with King, with a couple of Vaughan’s. It was initially released on CD in 1999. Although it’s been reissued over the years in different configurations, it wasn’t until 2024 that the entire performance was made available digitally, on CD, and on vinyl.

Where the original CD opened with “Call It Stormy Monday”, this deluxe edition of In Session opens with a run-through of King’s signature tune, the William Bell/Booker T. Jones-penned classic, “Born Under a Bad Sign”. It may act as a warm-up for King and Vaughan, a pre-run stretch, and a checking of levels, but it’s much more. It’s a precursor for the two hours of note-bending, dynamic-shifting, hat-tipping, and mutual respect.

Also restored on this deluxe version is an incendiary take on “Texas Flood”, which, after 20 minutes, seamlessly and impressively modulates into “Stormy Monday”” Within this context, it’s even more apparent that these are two masters of the trade, with each one pushing the other while enjoying the moment.

Throughout, Albert King offers encouragement and advice to young Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan is the respectful student in these conversations, still filled with admiration for his idol and a refreshing humility that belies his stratospheric rise during the previous few months. For one two-hour session, all the promises of new celebrity and chart success for the young gun and the lean years of the previous decade for the elder blues legend are kept outside the studio door. In Session was one night where two guitarists and a top-notch, sympathetic band just got down to business and gave us the goods. Over 40 years later, it’s still exciting.