Freddie King - The!!!!Beat 1966 (2001) DVD5

Freddie King, hard-driving and perhaps driven, was only 42 when he died on December 28, 1976. The intensity of the performances in this video suggest an artist who burned at full throttle every time he played. Guitarists as diverse as Eric Clapton and Jerry Garcia have cited King as a formative influence. Most of the clips in this collection come from a unique time warp, a fleeting moment when Southern R&B collided with mid-60s "Mod" and rendered a show called The!!!!Beat. Freddie King was 31 at the time of The!!!!Beat, playing and singing in prime form. This video collection presents all of Freddie King's appearances from this unique series. The DVD concludes with three tunes performed in Sweden in 1973 and shows Freddie's artistic growth.
This is almost too good to be true. It certainly ranks with the most important film/video discoveries in blues history. In 1966 a Black music variety show called The !!!! Beat ran for 26 segments and was shown in about a dozen major cities in the U.S. where there was a large blues and soul market. It was intelligently and tastefully done with live performances (no lip-synching) from some of the best Black artists on the scene at that time. Little Milton, Etta James, Joe Tex, Don Covay, Al “TNT” Braggs, Bobby Bland, Jr. Parker, Ike and Tina Turner and Freddie King were just some of the featured performers and Freddie became a regular guest, making several appearances at the behest of the show’s gregarious host “Hoss” Allen from WBAC, one of the most popular deejays on the continent. Allen was usually the only White face to be seen on the show, so it really was a revolutionary piece of work.
A TV show, put together by Blacks for a Black audience (every hip White kid on the continent was watching it too) in 1966 and it seemed even too good to be true back then. It blew the hell out of American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, and Shindig, that’s for sure. And to top things off the live band on the show was led by none other than Gatemouth Brown and he was at his peak, providing ass-kicking support for all the guests and really stretching out on their own whenever they got the chance. Gatemouth really looks like he’s enjoying himself on this video, a collection of winning performances by Freddie King and what’s extra special is that most of the 14 tunes are of the obscure (somewhat) variety such as Funny Bone, Sitting On A Boat Dock, She Put The Whammy On Me and San-Ho-Zay. Watching and listening to two of the greatest Texas bluesmen of all time work out together is such a rare treat that you’ll find yourself watching this over and over again. Crank it up full volume and do the Boogaloo in your living room. Hoss Allen’s a real treat as a host too (whatever happened to him?) and the 60 minute tape closes off with 3 tunes recorded in 1973 at a concert in Sweden. This tape is absolutely mandatory viewing and a treat for the eyes and ears. 6 bottles for the video of the year.