Bibi King is back on November 20 with B.B. King: The Montreux Years, a release built from restored live recordings from Montreux performances between 1982 and 2000. The set lands via BMG and turns a long festival run into a new catalog product with nine-appearance coverage on the 2CD and HD digital editions.
Montreux in 23 visits
B.B. King appeared at Montreux 23 times across four decades, and this collection narrows that history into a release window that runs from 1982 to 2000. The 2LP version draws from eight festival shows, while the 2CD and HD digital editions pull from nine different appearances, a split that suggests the label built the package for both vinyl buyers and listeners who want the broader archive.
Every recording was restored and newly mastered from the original tapes by Tony Cousins at Metropolis Studios in London. That kind of work turns archival live material into a saleable catalog release instead of a loose live roundup, especially when the performances have been pulled from original tapes rather than recycled as-is.
Early in the Mornin’
The announcement arrives with “Early in the Mornin’,” recorded during King’s 2000 Montreux performance and issued with an official video using footage from that set. The track pays tribute to Louis Jordan, which gives the release a second layer of context: it is not just concert documentation, but a performance sequence chosen to frame King’s influences as part of the package.
That matters because the collection is described as featuring all but one recording making its official release debut, so the archive is almost entirely new to the market while still carrying one prior release into the set. Which one recording had already been officially released is the unresolved point, and the album’s value now sits partly in that near-total first-release status.
1982 to 2000
The track list makes the spread more concrete. “Guess Who” comes from 1982, “Rock Me Baby” from 1984, “Caldonia” from 1987, and “The Thrill Is Gone” from 1990, showing that the release is built from documented festival nights rather than a single concert snapshot. For listeners, that means the new set works less like a souvenir and more like a curated survey of King’s Montreux years.
With November 20 set for BMG’s release, the practical takeaway is simple: this is the version to watch if you want the restored archive in one place, and the 2CD or HD digital editions offer the wider nine-appearance span. For an artist who returned to Montreux at Claude Nobs’s personal invitation, the package reads like a late-arriving inventory of a career-long relationship, not just one more live album.
