RECORD STORE DAY   All individual records $50 all box sets $300

Little Freddie King
Going Upstairs

Little Freddie King
Going Upstairs

Limited quantity available

"This project captures the authentic, incredibly raw style that King embodies, but it also expands on his forms of expression with solo, acoustic, and even gospel influence." –Analog Planet

You’ve never met anyone quite like the charismatic Delta blues guitarist and vocalist Little Freddie King. Going Upstairs captures the authentic, incredibly raw style that King embodies, but it also expands on his forms of expression with solo, acoustic, and even gospel influence.

Born in Mississippi, King rode the rails to New Orleans at the age of fourteen, began to study guitar, and soon found himself performing in juke joints across the city. King mastered his craft and recorded the first New Orleans electric blues album (Harmonica Williams and Little Freddie King) before setting off to tour with John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley.

Here, King is backed by his longtime band members ‘Wacko’ Wade Wright on drums and Robert Louis diTullio, Jr. on harmonica. The album also features the playing of Nashville guitarist Stephen Daly and bassist Paul Defiglia.

Album Facts

Catalog NVN002
Format 180-gram clear vinyl LP
Jacket Tip-on gatefold jacket

Recording Detail

Recording Misha Kachkachishvili, Esplanade Studios*
New Orleans, Louisiana USA
Mixing Marc Urselli, East Side Sound
New York, New York, USA
Mastering Alex DeTurk, The Bunker Studio
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Pressing Quality Record Pressing
Salina, Kansas, USA

* "Going Upstairs" recorded by Ian Wood at BJ's Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Track Listing

SIDE A

  1. "Bywater Crawl"
  2. "Pocket Full Of Money"
  3. "Going Up The Mountain"
  4. "Bad News"
  5. "I Used To Be Down"
  6. "Coming Home To Jesus"

SIDE B

  1. "Bus Station"
  2. "Stand At Your Door"
  3. "Can't Do Nothing Baby"
  4. "Mean Little Woman"
  5. "Going Upstairs (Live At BJ's Lounge)"

Liner Notes

Musicians:
Little Freddie King - Vocals, Electric and Acoustic Guitar
‘Wacko’ Wade Wright - Drums, Tambourine
Stephen Daly - 2nd Guitar and Slide
Paul Defligia - Bass

“Like a hundred years from now, the way I feel, to my knowledge, I don’t think it will be any more blues. But I hope that some of the younger people do latch in to it, you know, and play the real old roots, the real old blues. It’s better than any dose of medicine that any doctor can write you a prescription for. The real thing about it, the younger race they don’t know what the blues is because they didn’t live the blues and they didn’t go through hard tribulation and hard times. When you work so hard a whole year and you don’t get no money for it, you don’t get paid for it. Then you go out there you ain’t got decent clothes to wear. You got a pair a shoes. You wear them, go have holes in them. Then you gotta get a piece of cardboard to put in it to try and keep the rocks from getting in your shoes. You see they didn’t have to go through all of that. They didn’t have hard times for the blues to set in their system. It’s not there because they didn’t have to go through it. If they done went through it then they would understand and realize what it’s all about. It hits them and they enjoy and they love it, but they can’t reach it because they didn’t go through that same process. They know it's real real blues, it's such a thrill, but they still don’t understand it. To understand what they don’t understand they’d have to go through it. If they had gone through it, it’d be there.”

--Little Freddie King January 18, 2020

Continue reading
Download printable PDF
Back to top Continue Shopping