Nail the ToneAlbert King

Born Under a Bad Sign

Albert King · Born Under a Bad Sign · 1967

The signature riff is Steve Cropper doubling Duck Dunn's bass line in unison — his '63 Telecaster on the bridge pickup into a small blackface Fender combo at Stax, clean with just a touch of breakup and almost no reverb. Keep the mids up and the treble present so the line cuts against the horns, and pick hard and short rather than adding gain. Albert King's fills and solo around it are the Flying V, played upside down in his slack tuning, which is the part that won't copy with knobs alone.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

The riff sits in C#, so standard tuning works for it; Albert King's own fills and solo were played on a right-handed Flying V flipped over and tuned to one of his slack open tunings (reported variously as C-B-E-F#-B-E and C-F-C-F-A-D), so his bends won't reproduce exactly in standard.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender Telecaster (1963) · Fender single-coils · bridge pickup
  • Gibson Flying V (1959 korina) · Gibson humbuckers

Amp

Fender Super Reverb

GAIN
5.0
BASS
4.0
MID
7.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
2.0

Cropper told Vintage Guitar he started at Stax with a small tweed Harvard and "later moved up to a Super Reverb," which he places on 1967 sides like "Soul Man"; volume is the Super's Volume control, and blackface Supers have no presence knob.

Amp

Fender Harvard

GAIN
7.0
TREBLE
6.0

Competing account: Vintage Guitar raises the long-standing rumor that Albert King himself cut through Cropper's little tweed Harvard, and a secondhand collector story on The Gear Page claims King played Cropper's new Telecaster on this track; the Harvard has only Volume and Tone, so set Volume near 7 for light breakup.

Tone character

bright Tele bridge bite · forward mids · clean with slight breakup · dry, minimal reverb · hard, punchy note attack

easy

A single-note riff played in unison with the bass — no chords and no fast picking, but the syncopated pickup notes and the rests have to lock exactly with the bass line or the whole hook falls apart.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

Adapt it to my gear

Sources