The Guitar Plugged · Guitarist Index
Albert King
Solo
1953–1992
Blues
Upside-down, left-handed, and the source of nearly every great blues bend.
Main guitar
Gibson Flying V 'Lucy'
Signature sound
Fat, horn-like single notes with enormous over-bends
Era
1953–1992
Influence
92 / 100
Genre
Blues
Why they matter
Upside-down, left-handed, and the source of nearly every great blues bend.
King played a right-handed Flying V flipped over and restrung unconventionally, so he pulled strings downward instead of pushing them up. That physical quirk let him execute bends of a step and a half or more with total control, and those bends are the single most copied element in blues-rock lead playing.
Listen to Clapton, Hendrix, SRV or Gary Moore and you are hearing Albert King's phrasing filtered through different amps. Stevie Ray Vaughan was so directly indebted that their In Session recording plays like a masterclass and an audit at once.
He also used space brilliantly — long silences, then one note bent past where it should go.
The sound
Fat, horn-like single notes with enormous over-bends
Born Under a Bad Sign
Fat, dark and horn-like, sitting perfectly in a Stax arrangement with Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
Blues Power
Solid-state Acoustic 270 clarity — the bends have nowhere to hide.
As the Years Go Passing By
Slow-blues sustain with the vibrato doing all the emotional work.
Recreate the sound
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Style & technique
How you recognise the playing
Over-bending
Bends of a step and a half or more, executed by pulling strings downward on a flipped guitar.
Minimal note choice
Whole solos built on a handful of notes with maximum expression per note.
Horn-section phrasing
Lines that answer the vocal like a brass part, shaped by his Stax band context.
Percussive attack
Bare-thumb and finger picking giving a fat, blunt transient.
The rig
Instruments, amplification and effects
- Gibson Flying V 'Lucy'
- Custom Flying V builds
- Acoustic 270 solid state
- Fender Twin (early)
- Roland Jazz Chorus
- MXR Phase 90 (occasionally)
- Otherwise none
- Gibson humbuckers
- Right-handed guitar flipped over, unconventional string order
- Open tuning variants
Essential listening
Where to start
- 011967
Born Under a Bad Sign
Albert King · Born Under a Bad Sign
- 021967
Crosscut Saw
Albert King · Born Under a Bad Sign
- 031967
As the Years Go Passing By
Albert King · Born Under a Bad Sign
- 041968
Blues Power
Albert King · Live Wire/Blues Power
Career landmarks
The moments that mattered
Born Under a Bad Sign
The album that connected blues guitar to soul production and reached the rock audience.
In Session with SRV
A recorded conversation between master and disciple that doubles as a phrasing tutorial.
The legacy
Lineage
Influenced by
T-Bone Walker
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Adjacent players
More from the archive
The player who turned amplifier noise into a musical language.
Session-hardened producer who built rock guitar as an architecture, not a solo.
The player who translated Chicago blues into British rock volume.
The restless technician who kept reinventing what an electric guitar could be.
The master of the long note — space, sustain and perfect note choice.
The Texas force of nature who dragged the blues back into the mainstream.