Eric Clapton & B.B. King Heading To A Jukebox Near You

07/13/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(7/13/00, 10 a.m. ET) - You'll soon be able to hear your favorite song from the Eric Clapton-B.B. King album Riding With The King in your favorite neighborhood establishment. Warner Bros. Records is turning the album's 12 songs into a set of six double-A-sided, 7-inch vinyl singles, which will be released to the jukebox industry for placement in machines around the country.

The 45s, which will come in two sets of three, are broken up this way -- the first collection has "Riding With The King" b/w "Key To The Highway," "Worried Life Blues" b/w "Days Of Old," and " Come Rain Or Come Shine" b/w "Ten Long Years," while the second features "Marry You" b/w "Three O'Clock Blues," "When My Heart Beats Like A Hammer" b/w "I Wanna Be," and "Help The Poor" b/w "Hold On I'm Coming."

While the singles will be around, one place you won't find them is at your local record store. A Warner spokesperson told LAUNCH that there are no plans to release the records to retail, and that the collection has no artwork, liner notes, or anything else that might make it attractive to the average fan.

Riding With The King, which debuted at Number Three in Billboard, is holding steady at Number 10 for a second week. According to industry sources, the album sold more than 94,000 copies last week. It's also the tops on the Internet sales chart, for the second week in a row.

-- Bruce Simon, New York

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