Born Under a Bad Sign

Born Under a Bad Sign was Albert King's first album for Stax Records, compiling eleven sides recorded across five sessions between March 1966 and June 1967 at the label's Memphis studio. It was the only full album King ever cut with the label's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s (Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Al Jackson Jr.), alongside the Memphis Horns.

The record fused King's Delta-rooted electric blues guitar playing with Stax's tighter, funkier Southern soul arrangements, a combination that didn't chart on release but steadily grew in stature. It earned a Billboard "Special Merit Pick" at the time, and has since been inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, while landing on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Its influence on rock guitar has been outsized relative to its initial commercial reception: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Derek Trucks have all cited it directly, and its title track and "The Hunter" were both covered or interpolated by major rock acts of the era, including Cream and Led Zeppelin.