Palace of the King

Recorded in Shelter Records' orbit with Leon Russell producing, "Palace of the King" finds Freddie King moved out of the Chicago club and into a wide, horn-lined studio built for rock audiences. The arrangement is thick — piano rolling underneath, a horn section punching on the backbeat, backing voices swelling in gospel formation — and King's guitar has to cut through all of it, which he does with a fatter, more sustained tone than his early instrumental work. His voice by 1971 is a heavy, grainy baritone shout, less nimble than a decade earlier and far more commanding, delivering the lyric with a preacher's pacing. The song's conceit is regal: a claim to sovereignty over one's own domain, a boast that doubles as a plea to be taken seriously in a music business that was busy handing his idiom to younger white players. That tension is the record's real subject. The Getting Ready sessions were King's bid at a crossover audience, and the swagger here is calculated but not false. Good for a Saturday night getting-ready ritual, volume up, or for anyone who wants blues with the size and strut of soul revue arrangement.