Albert King: The Velvet Bulldozer Who Played Guitar Upside Down

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Picture this, you're walking into a smoky packed nightclub in the mid 1950s.

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

Okay, setting the scene.

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

Yeah, you push your way near the front, and up on stage is this absolute giant of a man. We are talking well over six feet tall, maybe six foot seven, according to the local rumors, and weighing in at a solid 250 pounds.

SPEAKER_2 (0:22)

Just a massive presence.

SPEAKER_1 (0:24)

Completely, he commands the room before he even hits a single chord. But it is not just his sheer size that catches your eye, it's his guitar.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

Right.

SPEAKER_1 (0:32)

He is playing a standard right-handed electric guitar, but he's holding it completely upside down. And the absolute wildest part of this whole scene, he is telling everyone in the room that he is the blood brother of the already famous BB. King.

SPEAKER_2 (0:46)

It creates such a striking visual, you know, a towering figure holding this upside down instrument, projecting total authority, and well, running a brazen hustle right out in the open.

SPEAKER_1 (0:55)

You're right, because here's the reality of that story. The upside down guitar, very real. The overwhelming physical presence, also real.

But being BB. King's brother...

SPEAKER_2 (1:05)

Not so much. Not at all.

SPEAKER_1 (1:06)

That was a massive calculated fabrication. So today, our mission on this deep dive is to look at the life of Albert King.

SPEAKER_2 (1:14)

The Velvet Bulldozer.

SPEAKER_1 (1:15)

Yes, the Velvet Bulldozer.

We are going to explore how a boy born into poverty on a Mississippi cotton plantation essentially sealed himself into becoming a blues icon and in the process, provided the literal blueprint for modern Rock and Roll guitar. Okay, let's untack this.

SPEAKER_2 (1:33)

Well, the journey to get there is incredibly complex. I mean, when historians talk about blues music, you constantly hear about the three kings of the blues.

SPEAKER_1 (1:41)

Right, BB., Freddie and Albert.

SPEAKER_2 (1:42)

Exactly. You have BB. King, Freddie King and Albert King. And none of them were related, but they share this royal status in American music. And out of those three, Albert King was by far the most unorthodox.

He possessed a playing style that, from a pure physics standpoint, almost shouldn't have worked. Yet it made him this mythic force.

SPEAKER_1 (2:02)

Let's start long before anyone was calling him a king, though, because he was born Albert Nelson in 1923, down in Indianola, Mississippi. And his childhood was, well, it was brutal.

SPEAKER_2 (2:12)

Yeah, it was incredibly hard.

SPEAKER_1 (2:13)

His father abandoned the family when Albert was only five years old. By the time he was eight, he's moving with his mother and sisters to Arkansas, where his childhood effectively ends. And he just starts working the cotton fields.

SPEAKER_2 (2:26)

Manual labor really defined his entire early existence. Aside from picking cotton, he eventually moved into heavy construction. At one point, he drove a literal bulldozer. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that detail actually matters because wrestling heavy machinery all day built up this immense physical strength in his hands and forearms.

SPEAKER_1 (2:46)

Which comes in handy later.

SPEAKER_2 (2:48)

Exactly. And that day job is actually where part of his famous nickname the Velvet Bulldozer comes from.

SPEAKER_1 (2:54)

Well, the bulldozer part makes total sense for a guy his size, but where does the velvet come in?

SPEAKER_2 (2:58)

It referred to his singing voice. Really? Yeah. He had this remarkably smooth, mellow, almost crooning vocal delivery. It was a massive contrast to his giant, intimidating physical frame.

SPEAKER_1 (3:09)

That's amazing. And his entry into actually playing music was just as scrappy as the rest of his early life, right? Like he started out singing in a family gospel group. But when it came to instruments, he didn't just go down to a local music shop.

SPEAKER_2 (3:23)

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_1 (3:24)

He built his first guitar himself out of an old cigar box, a piece of a bush, and a single strand of broom wire.

SPEAKER_2 (3:31)

The classic Diddley Bow.

SPEAKER_1 (3:32)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (3:33)

It's a foundational instrument for so many early blues musicians. And it forced him to understand music fundamentally. I mean, when you only have one string, you can't rely on complex fingerings.

SPEAKER_1 (3:44)

Right. There's nowhere to put your fingers.

SPEAKER_2 (3:46)

Exactly. You have to learn how to create motion by bending that single wire, altering the tension to change the pitch.

SPEAKER_1 (3:53)

If you're listening right now, imagine trying to learn modern coding, but you have to build the computer yourself out of spare microwave parts first.

SPEAKER_2 (4:00)

That's a great way to put it.