“The Thrill Is Gone” is a slow minor-key blues song written by West Coast blues musician Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951. After working in clubs, he broke through with his 1950 song “Why Do Things Happen to Me” inspired by an auto accident which paralyzed his right arm. Hawkins continued to release singles on Modern and had his second hit in 1951 with “The Thrill is Gone”, co-credited to Bihari but in fact co-written with Rick Darnell. The record featured Maxwell Davis (saxophone), Willard Mc Daniel (piano) and Johnny Moore (guitar), and reached number 6 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1951.
B.B. King recorded his version of “The Thrill Is Gone” in June 1969 for his album Completely Well, released the same year. King’s version is a slow 12-bar blues notated in the key of B minor in 4/4 time. The song’s polished production and use of strings marked a departure from both the original song and King’s previous material. In 1970, “The Thrill Is Gone” became a major hit for B.B. King. His rendition helped make the song a blues standard.
When released as a single in December 1969, the song became one of the biggest hits of King’s career, appearing in the R&B chart at number three and the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart at number 15 and became one of his signature songs. B.B. King’s recording earned him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 1970 and a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 1998. King’s version of the song was also placed at number 183 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
‘Using a blues-rock basis for the main melody, King casts the entire song in a very heavy jazz feel and flavour, attacking each verse with a world-weary vocal and some radical and sinewy guitar arpeggios. The feeling of breaking free from a possessive lover is the main basis for the lyrics, and King’s use of blues imagery is perfect for the song, which indeed provided real release. But its the song’s overall groove that is the star here, giving the overall piece a definitive atmosphere. This is, in fact, the lesson that he had been teaching all of his students from Michael Bloomfield to Eric Clapton in the ’60s, and although many of their records preceded his on the charts, it was this exquisite piece at the dawn of the ’70s that defined the blues movement. The single version is a necessity, but the extended live version on Live at San Quentin is extremely potent, and gives the listener the same feel in a bigger, more grandiose package.’ Matthew Greenwald.
I first came across this song when I heard King play it alongside Eric Clapton and Phil Collins. King shares the music with them very generously and would go ont to to do so with a generation of singers and musicians both likely and the unexpected. Here he duets with Irish blues/rock player Gary Moore, who brings his own distinct sound to the piece.
I was reminded of this piece of music during my research for the recent post on Tracy Chapman. I came across a video of her duetting with King on this song live on the David Letterman show. It is interesting to hear the familiar lyrics sung by a female voice.
One of the more unusual collaborations King undertook with this song occurred in June 1999 when he appeared in Parco Novi Sad, Modena, Italy alongside Luciano Pavarotti in a concert in support of the people of Guatemala and Kosovo. Pavarotti doesnot sing any of the words, but the power of his voice carries the melody in a very different way.
Finally the song in the hands od Solange who brings her modern R&B stylings to the lyrics for a subtly different rendition.
