Recorded at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore Auditorium in June 1968 during Albert King's first engagement there as a headliner, Live Wire/Blues Power ranks with B.B. King's Live at the Regal of four years earlier as one of the greatest and most influential live blues albums of all time. Performing six tunes, only two of which he'd recorded previously, the 6'4" blues titan was able to stretch out beyond the three-to-four minutes allowed on 45-RPM discs and finally capture on vinyl the way he played in person. The results were nothing short of incendiary. As critic Albert Goldman commented at the time: "Instead of bending or warping a note here and there for special effect, King skirls every kiss-off note, sending vicious waves along his strings like the ripples on a cobra's back."