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Chicago blues guitar firebrand Freddie King did his best and definitive recording for the Federal label in the early '60s, when he helped define the Windy City's hard-edged West Side sound. Sadly, none of that material is included on these two CDs. However, we do get to hear King take a rare turn on acoustic guitar (on Elmore James's "Dust My Broom" and Jimmy Rogers "Walking by Myself") and rip through his late-career signature "Going Down" as well as 38 other tracks. There's also a half-dozen unreleased cuts, including a version of his classic "Hide Away." But too much of this stuff--tunes like John Fogerty's "Lodi," "Ain't No Sunshine," "Gimme Some Lovin'"--seems like a bad producer's notion of what King needed to record to reach a rock audience. Thankfully the strength of his vocals and gutsy guitar carry most of these performances. --Ted Drozdowski