Zev Feldman Inaugurates His New Label Time Traveler With Broadcasting The Blues, Two Rare B.B. King Live Performances Licensed From The Archives Of Reelin’ In The Years Productions On RSD Black Friday 2025

     Two-LP Set Due Nov. 28 Unearths Exciting Shows by the “King of the Blues” at the Height of His Powers from Germany (1968) and Sweden (1973) and Released in Cooperation with The BB King Music Company

Also Coming on CD Dec. 5, Package Features a Historic Overview by Journalist Jean Buzelin, a Remembrance by Derek Trucks of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and more

Zev Feldman, known as “the Jazz Detective” for his award-winning archival productions in that genre, will launch his new imprint Time Traveler, devoted to music in other American styles, with the two-LP Nov. 28 release of Broadcasting the Blues: Live From Germany and Sweden, featuring a pair of hot performances captured on European tours by “the King of the Blues,” B.B. King. The release is made possible by the cooperation of the B.B. King Music Company and was executive produced by TBC Group LLC/Vassal Benford on behalf of the B.B. King Music Company. The recordings were also fully-licensed from producer David Peck’s Reelin’ In The Years Productions archives, who for nearly 30 years has specialized in licensing music footage and other audio-visual material and has amassed a collection of over 30,000 hours of performances from all genres of music covering the last 100 years.

The RSD Black Friday set — which will also be issued in a CD package on Dec. 5 — captures the great blues singer-guitarist in shows recorded for TV productions by Germany’s national network in Cologne on Jan. 19, 1968, and for Swedish television in Stockholm on Oct. 29, 1973. Both dates feature lineups of Sonny Freeman and the Kingpins, King’s touring band of the era; the ’68 show is a quintet date, while the ’73 gig is a nonet.

The collection, to be released on 180-gram vinyl, was sonically restored and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. Lacquers were cut at AIR Mastering in London.

The Time Traveler packages will include commentary from producers David Peck of Reelin’ In The Years and Eric Kulberg of Universal Media; journalist and author Jean Buzelin, who caught several European appearances by King at his height; and singer-guitarist Derek Trucks, son of the late drummer Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band and co-leader, with his singer-guitarist wife Susan Tedeschi, of the Tedeschi Trucks Band.

Broadcasting the Blues succeeds Feldman’s production B.B. King in France: Live at the 1977 Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival, a 2024 RSD Black Friday release from Deep Digs/Elemental Music, which climbed to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart.

Feldman says, “These recordings came to me by way of my friend Eric Kulberg. He was suggesting various recordings that I could consider releasing on Time Traveler, and he mentioned these B.B. King recordings, which immediately piqued my interest. I was quite taken with them, so we connected with a mutual colleague of ours, someone we’ve known for many years, David Peck from Reelin’ in the Years Productions, whose music footage archive is the largest such library in the world and holds many great jewels of previously unissued recordings.”

Peck adds, “Both of these shows are very powerful from not only a visual standpoint, but the audio on its own is stunning in sound quality and performance. I’m particularly partial to the January 1968 concert because B.B. King had yet to become the household name — that would happen two years later with the release of ‘The Thrill is Gone.’ The tone of his guitar gets me every time. To the best of my knowledge, what you’re listening to is the earliest sound recording from a full concert video of B.B. King known to exist. I’m very happy to share these unique B.B. King concert performances with the world.”

Kulberg says, “It is B.B. King’s passion and the accessibility of his music to everyone that has made him an eternal star that will brighten all our lives forever.”

Benford, chairman of the B.B. King Music Company, says, “It is a profound honor to represent the legacy of B.B. King. Through this live album, we are proud to share his extraordinary artistry with fans around the world and ensure that his music continues to inspire generations to come.”  

Buzelin writes of the German performance, “B.B. and his band walked into a television studio in Cologne; the setting was intimate, the audience was young and were seated just a few feet away from King and his band. B.B.'s band was made up of a quartet of young players, except for drummer Sonny Freeman, who had been with King for ten years.”

Of the Stockholm performance, he adds, “The band was augmented for King’s 1973 trip — four horns and a four-piece rhythm section with a second guitarist, the excellent Milton Hopkins, Ron Levy playing piano instead of the usual organ, and the Freeman brothers on bass and drums. The performance was well-rehearsed, which didn’t mean it was unexciting. Indeed, it was thrilling.”

“B.B. King was just a special human,” says Derek Trucks, who played with King in concert and cites him as a key influence. “When you met him, you got the same feeling that you did when you heard him. There was just was a humanity about him, and there was a real gentleness about him and a sophistication and a beauty, but he was just different from everyone else….B.B.'s phrasing, his tone, the space between the notes, those were the things my father would preach when talking about Duane Allman or B.B. King. There are a lot of guys who can just shred and play a million notes, but when B.B. lays one out there, everyone can just pack it up and go home.”

For more information please contact:

Matt Hanks / Shore Fire Media

Ph: 718.522.7171 ext. 42 / mhanks@shorefire.com