Live at the Regal

Live at the Regal was recorded on 21 November 1964 at the Regal Theater in Chicago, a venue King said he had played hundreds of times. Johnny Pate produced for ABC, and Ron Steele Sr. engineered. Pervis Spann (side one) and E. Rodney Jones (side two) are credited as presenters.

Duke Jethro was supposed to play organ that night, but the organ broke. King told him to play piano, and when Jethro said he did not know how, King answered that he should just sit there and pretend. King later said everything came together that day in Chicago and that some people considered it the best recording he had made.

The Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry in 2005, describing it as one of the first in-concert blues albums and noting how it shows King's sliding-note guitar style and his close relationship with the audience. Rolling Stone ranked it number 141 in 2003 and number 299 in 2020. The MusicHound Blues guide called it, in its words, the greatest album in all modern blues. Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, John Mayer and Mark Knopfler are among the musicians who have used it as a primer before performances. It is also in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and in Robert Christgau's Basic Record Library.