Blues standard popularised by B.B. King among others. This is the 1951 original version by its writer Roy Hawkins on Modern. Thanks Joop Jansen (audio) & Dick Rosemont (artwork).
Each time I Iisten to this original take I'm simply stunned and wonder why the world had to wait for BB King to reinterpret such a classic before taking it for what it truly is - a timeless masterpiece.
Wow. I've never heard this version by the author of a great song, This is rawer, without the strings of BB and Little Milton (my favorite cover). Roy deserves more recognition for writing this song.
I really like this original version. It captures that sensual blues feeling from that era in time. A bit like Cab Calloway. Completely different blues feel.
Oh yeah! A great nostaligic blues tune rendered in a soulful laid-back take against a backdrop of a well orchestrated ensemble. BB King gave it a happy gait and with his wonderful guitar work made the phenomenon that it has become. Beautiful and untarnishable music either way.
In 1948, Hawkins was backed by William Staples on tenor sax, Ulysses James on guitar, Floyd Montgomery on bass and Madison Little on drums. I'm not entirely sure they all were still around on this recording.
[Verse 1] The thrill is gone Gone, gone away Yes, the thrill is gone Gone, gone to stay Baby, you've done me wrong You'll be sorry someday [Verse 2] The thrill is gone Gone, gone from me I'll still live on Lonely though I'll be Yeah, that old thrill we knew Nothin' but misery [Bridge] The first time I met you, baby You leave your magic well But now I can't forget you Got to free, free from your spell [Outro] The thrill is gone Gone, gone for good Baby, it's all over I'll carry on, that's understood
“The Thrill Is Gone” was another old R&B hit that B.B. King had filed away in his disc-jockey brain. It was a top-ten single in 1951 for Roy Hawkins, a rhythm-and-blues singer and noted sad sack who once penned a side titled “Gloom and Misery All Around.” Hawkins had been B.B.’s label-mate at Modern Records. He performed “The Thrill Is Gone” as a mournful shuffle. B.B. carried the song around in his head for years, reimagining it in various arrangements and even trying to record it once or twice. One night during the sessions for Completely Well, B.B. arrived at the studio with a new version that he liked. He had raised the key, lifted the tempo, and shifted the rhythm to Otis Redding-style soul. Whereas the original ballad hewed to the twelve-bar, three-chord formula of minor blues, B.B. had introduced a note of compositional complexity: a fourth chord, in the third line of each verse, a baby step into the province of pop. Szymczyk “set up the sound nice and mellow,” B.B. recalled. And then, “without tellin’ them what I was gonna do, I slipped into this tune. And everybody fell right in, and it seemed to be the sweetest sound ever to me.” The recorded performance opened with a single, ringing, vibrating note from Lucille, held for three full beats before B.B. proceeded into his introductory solo, soaring over a pulsing bass and watery splashes of organ. And then he sang: “The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away.” B.B. had rewritten Roy Hawkins’s melody, taming it into a simple, hummable, descending line. Jemmott found the perfect bass pattern to complement B.B.’s melody, built around a little riff on the first and third beats that tiptoed up to each note. Lovelle, the drummer, anchored the bass to a spare, slightly lagging 4/4 rock tempo. Together, bass, drums, and melody conspired to render the song unique and memorable. Yet, according to Szymczyk and Jemmott, no one went home that night thinking they had recorded a hit. B.B. would later claim that he, and maybe he alone, had heard its promise: “I was thrilled.” Visé, Daniel de. King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B. B. King m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0LRiw8cfqQ21ZYY7MPeFGr8asAsiDCcizqBcshZHANZCmrGbuFtwhriCyRpKZyRV8l&id=100057404832807
In releasing King's version, his then-label, BluesWay/ABC, reimagined this number as allegedly being written by Arthur H. Benson and Dale Pettite - who'd actually written an entirely different song with that main title, but with subtitle added: "The Thrill Is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss)." Apparently ABC or their copyright department never checked as to the actual writers of this one - one of whom was, of course, Mr. Hawkins; who was "Taub" anyway?
JK is lovable. I'm assisting passively a high school classmate -- we did time together at prep school JK spent PG year before his year and small change at Columbia -- on a JK documentary and poetry class of his work. JK is lovable.
That #V chord (C) is used as the intro, but only once. BB and bassist Jerry Jermott took that and made it the primary turnaround of the song! That simple adjustment and use changed the blues game, forever!
That's nonsense. It's like saying Fats ripped off Blueberry Hill. This was a longtime classic. Most Blues songs are covers. Credit is given, and the song evolves.
This is from a different era accoustic bass and tenor sax.Pre electric guitar and bass. But like all good music it can hold its own because it's quality music. .
One of the things that really separates BB's version from this was the prominence of the electric bass. The great Jerry Jemmont, a soul bassist played on BB's version and gave it that great Bluesy/Afro Latin bass line.
Well of course the electric bass aka bass guitar changed everything for 12 bar blues and popular music generally. And speaking of bars - the other kind - the el bs heard from streetside became a great ad for the music inside the bar/pub/club and made for a much livelier jam in your fave watering hole. (btw Jerry Jemmott)
DiscoHank The things that separate this are numerous from BB King's version. First, the rhythm is completely different. The feel of Roy Hawkins version is more typically what you'd hear in a juke joint. It's almost like a slow shuffle. Secondly, BB King's version was not as simplistic as this version is. They imloyed, electric guitar, electric piano, electric bass, strings, and as stated before, a different groove altogether. Thirdly, the lyrics to the original slightly vary from BB King's version. I noticed the lyrical difference right off the first few phrases Roy sang. BB King took this song to a whole new level when his version was released. It went from Blues to Blues with a twist of soul in it.
I was hoping..only to be disappointed again. I'm looking for a less bluesy, more popular version. I want a version where the singer seems to regret the end of the affair.
That would be a different song. The whole thrust of this song is "I'm over you". "I'm free from your spell" is saying he's no longer attracted to her, not that he regrets losing her. It's obviously tinged with sorrow, because it's a minor blues - if he was glad to see the back of her, it would probably be in a major key, and called "I'm thrilled you've gone".
Each time I Iisten to this original take I'm simply stunned and wonder why the world had to wait for BB King to reinterpret such a classic before taking it for what it truly is - a timeless masterpiece.
Totally agree. This version is perfect!
Sho u right!
Both are good, but BB and Lucille. I think Lucille just put a real spin on it and the rest is history 😊
I've always loved BB's version, but this is pretty good too. I'd never heard it before, and it's always good to hear the original.
It fit it's era. Saw BB 3x's and met him once. Lovely musician.
I love the tolling bells piano and grief-stricken sax - there's as much mournfulness as acrimony in this version.
Sad that this man died living in Compton working in a furniture store. Under appreciated for his time.
Wow. I've never heard this version by the author of a great song, This is rawer, without the strings of BB and Little Milton (my favorite cover). Roy deserves more recognition for writing this song.
This original by Roy Hawkins is great! And, as much as I love BB King, I like Roy's version better.
Ominous piano and sax to match the brooding vocals.
I really like this original version. It captures that sensual blues feeling from that era in time. A bit like Cab Calloway. Completely different blues feel.
Cab calloway the thrill is gone
Reminds me a little of the Johnny Ace blues feeling.
@@bobaldo2339 Charles Brown also
In 2020 still thrilling....🌠🌠🌠
2022 same
Solid Jackson! This tune has power.
OMG! Just OMG! to both artists, B.B. King and the original Roy Hawkins, props!
Oh yeah! A great nostaligic blues tune rendered in a soulful laid-back take against a backdrop of a well orchestrated ensemble. BB King gave it a happy gait and with his wonderful guitar work made the phenomenon that it has become. Beautiful and untarnishable music either way.
Awesome song and great version! Man could they use to make music!
I just wanted to check this original version out. I bet it was a hit back then.
A great performance,I love it.
Always love to hear the original. Thank you!
In 1948, Hawkins was backed by William Staples on tenor sax, Ulysses James on guitar, Floyd Montgomery on bass and Madison Little on drums. I'm not entirely sure they all were still around on this recording.
[Verse 1]
The thrill is gone
Gone, gone away
Yes, the thrill is gone
Gone, gone to stay
Baby, you've done me wrong
You'll be sorry someday
[Verse 2]
The thrill is gone
Gone, gone from me
I'll still live on
Lonely though I'll be
Yeah, that old thrill we knew
Nothin' but misery
[Bridge]
The first time I met you, baby
You leave your magic well
But now I can't forget you
Got to free, free from your spell
[Outro]
The thrill is gone
Gone, gone for good
Baby, it's all over
I'll carry on, that's understood
“The Thrill Is Gone” was another old R&B hit that B.B. King had filed away in his disc-jockey brain. It was a top-ten single in 1951 for Roy Hawkins, a rhythm-and-blues singer and noted sad sack who once penned a side titled “Gloom and Misery All Around.” Hawkins had been B.B.’s label-mate at Modern Records. He performed “The Thrill Is Gone” as a mournful shuffle. B.B. carried the song around in his head for years, reimagining it in various arrangements and even trying to record it once or twice. One night during the sessions for Completely Well, B.B. arrived at the studio with a new version that he liked. He had raised the key, lifted the tempo, and shifted the rhythm to Otis Redding-style soul. Whereas the original ballad hewed to the twelve-bar, three-chord formula of minor blues, B.B. had introduced a note of compositional complexity: a fourth chord, in the third line of each verse, a baby step into the province of pop.
Szymczyk “set up the sound nice and mellow,” B.B. recalled. And then, “without tellin’ them what I was gonna do, I slipped into this tune. And everybody fell right in, and it seemed to be the sweetest sound ever to me.” The recorded performance opened with a single, ringing, vibrating note from Lucille, held for three full beats before B.B. proceeded into his introductory solo, soaring over a pulsing bass and watery splashes of organ. And then he sang: “The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away.” B.B. had rewritten Roy Hawkins’s melody, taming it into a simple, hummable, descending line. Jemmott found the perfect bass pattern to complement B.B.’s melody, built around a little riff on the first and third beats that tiptoed up to each note. Lovelle, the drummer, anchored the bass to a spare, slightly lagging 4/4 rock tempo. Together, bass, drums, and melody conspired to render the song unique and memorable. Yet, according to Szymczyk and Jemmott, no one went home that night thinking they had recorded a hit. B.B. would later claim that he, and maybe he alone, had heard its promise: “I was thrilled.”
Visé, Daniel de. King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B. B. King
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0LRiw8cfqQ21ZYY7MPeFGr8asAsiDCcizqBcshZHANZCmrGbuFtwhriCyRpKZyRV8l&id=100057404832807
In releasing King's version, his then-label, BluesWay/ABC, reimagined this number as allegedly being written by Arthur H. Benson and Dale Pettite - who'd actually written an entirely different song with that main title, but with subtitle added: "The Thrill Is Gone (From Yesterday's Kiss)." Apparently ABC or their copyright department never checked as to the actual writers of this one - one of whom was, of course, Mr. Hawkins; who was "Taub" anyway?
Can somebody put more his songs? We deserve to listen his beautiful music...
a great song is a great song ...period.
Wow. Saxophone makes it even greater
The screaming goose sax dirge march rhythm really convey the brooding emotion of the lyrics.
It was a sign i came across BB King's version then this one all on the same day. Time yo gake the songs advice
Kerouac, "Desolation Angels" brought me here. I love him for that!
JK is lovable.
I'm assisting passively a high school classmate -- we did time together at prep school JK spent PG year before his year and small change at Columbia -- on a JK documentary and poetry class of his work.
JK is lovable.
Yes it is powerful song
It’s got quite a Charles Brown/Amos Milburn feel
Yes
love this track thank for the sharing
i though bb king did this oringinal wow learn something new everyday
Thanks for posting this, brother! I've been wanting to hear this for a long time..
Yeah! Saxophone & piano just great.
But I do love the fact this original was done in Oakland!
Man, this is good stuff here!
I like this version but I liked how bb king spiced it up a little
Wow, a much different version than the song B.B. King had a hit with in 1970, which was his big crossover success!
That #V chord (C) is used as the intro, but only once. BB and bassist Jerry Jermott took that and made it the primary turnaround of the song! That simple adjustment and use changed the blues game, forever!
Good observation!
But BB still ripped Hawkins off.
That's nonsense. It's like saying Fats ripped off Blueberry Hill. This was a longtime classic. Most Blues songs are covers. Credit is given, and the song evolves.
Don't underplay the addition of strings to the arrangement.
I think the compositional design of the original here is a tolling bells intro and dirge march rhythm to convey the brooding grief of the lyrics.
for me tthis is the best version, thanks for posting!
Huh? I thought the BB King version is the original version. So much I little know.
esto es arte
Great groove
WOW. TY for posting the original version. I'm sorry I discovered literally moments ago BB KING covered this song.
E H
Unfortunately True 🤨
Blues!!!!!!! ❤👍only!!!!!!!!!!❤👍
Thanks for sharing the original.
Thanks for posting it. Never heard this.
fantastico!
thanx for this
This is from a different era accoustic bass and tenor sax.Pre electric guitar and bass.
But like all good music it can hold its own because it's quality music.
.
This one sounds better because its original
If it’s possible, this is more bluesy than BB’s. Puts me to mind of Bobby Blue Bland.
✨Great 💫
killer sax
Piano too.
Well, it is a Blues, and it definitely has Rhythm, I guess it's R&B.
Chet Baker's cover is amazing. Sadder and softer.
BB made a killer version of this song no doubt, but that meandering saxophone is so tasty.
Harmonics played on top of the sax's normal range are what give it that intense, searing sound.
@@manly1974 Interesting, Ill know a neat little trick if I ever find the extra cash for a Tenor
recognisable.
One of the biggest differences between this lovely original and BB's are the strings on BB's version.
Awesome.
Who is on sax?
plus rien a dire pour ce qui aime le coton club !!!!
-❤❤❤-
@george8404
Yeah, it is nice as well! TY.
So my whole life was a lie I thought this was bb king
notable!!
Neat!!
meraviglia
who plays the saxophone?
One of the things that really separates BB's version from this was the prominence of the electric bass. The great Jerry Jemmont, a soul bassist played on BB's version and gave it that great Bluesy/Afro Latin bass line.
Well of course the electric bass aka bass guitar changed everything for 12 bar blues and popular music generally. And speaking of bars - the other kind - the el bs heard from streetside became a great ad for the music inside the bar/pub/club and made for a much livelier jam in your fave watering hole. (btw Jerry Jemmott)
Let's not ignore the inspired addition of strings!
DiscoHank The things that separate this are numerous from BB King's version. First, the rhythm is completely different. The feel of Roy Hawkins version is more typically what you'd hear in a juke joint. It's almost like a slow shuffle. Secondly, BB King's version was not as simplistic as this version is. They imloyed, electric guitar, electric piano, electric bass, strings, and as stated before, a different groove altogether. Thirdly, the lyrics to the original slightly vary from BB King's version. I noticed the lyrical difference right off the first few phrases Roy sang. BB King took this song to a whole new level when his version was released. It went from Blues to Blues with a twist of soul in it.
I like BB version better because it is what I know but please appreciate where it came from....it is good.
BB sung it like he had experienced it. Roy's a little too casual, especially after hearing BB.
@@gregw8232 That wailing sax and dirge march rhythm are definitely not casual and neither are Roy Hawkins brooding vocals.
BB King made it a HIT!
Yes but this is better
maresh para poly
Maxwell Davis.
Who's playing tenor on this, anyone know?
Maxwell Davis
thanks
im going to guess Maxwell Davis on sax, and arranger.
oh my fucking god.... how could bb remake this to THAT? :D bb is king
B. B. King put the thrill into this song. Not that this version is bad; far from it. But King's version: WOW.
the sax player sounds a lot like Mancini's player on the "Pink Panther'-- who was that?
john nance Plas Johnson.
smooth as fuck
ayuentikh ektelesi .
ΤΗΕ ΟΝΕ
poly kalo
So BB is King, but this man is an Emperor))
Sounds a bit like Charles Brown
I was hoping..only to be disappointed again. I'm looking for a less bluesy, more popular version. I want a version where the singer seems to regret the end of the affair.
That would be a different song. The whole thrust of this song is "I'm over you". "I'm free from your spell" is saying he's no longer attracted to her, not that he regrets losing her. It's obviously tinged with sorrow, because it's a minor blues - if he was glad to see the back of her, it would probably be in a major key, and called "I'm thrilled you've gone".
KORYFAIES ANARTHHSEIS
spanio
Improvements - can be good
Not in this case
I've just heard a terrible funky jazz version of on the radio.
Ella Mae Morse sang this in 1942...this isn't the "original"
with Freddie Slack and his orchestra...
that being said, even though he was late to the party, not a bad version...
Charles Woolfolk would you post a link to Ella Mae’s recording? Thank you.
wrong song bro charles ... same name wrong song
@@charleswoolfolk1125 th-cam.com/video/E-CqEY0ShTA/w-d-xo.html
@@ggamos9831 its a different tune altogether ... gr8 song .. the thrill is gone ...written by lew henderson
th-cam.com/video/E-CqEY0ShTA/w-d-xo.html
This is really great but I much prefer BB Kings version..