Catfish Blues

B.B. King recorded Catfish Blues during the sessions for My Kind of Blues, issued in 1961. The track recast Robert Petways blues standard in Kings clean electric guitar style and relaxed small-combo setting. Issued on the Crown album My Kind of Blues, Catfish Blues showed King applying his modern phrasing to an older Delta blues text. The album became a respected early-1960s entry in his catalogue rather than a hit-single vehicle. Kings Catfish Blues helped keep the Robert Petway song in circulation among electric blues audiences. The piece remained a blues standard through later versions by Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, and other blues-rock performers.