B.B. King

The king who proved one perfectly bent note can say everything

Riley B. King was born in 1925 on a plantation near Itta Bena, Mississippi, and grew up working the cotton fields while singing gospel in church. The Pentecostal preacher's guitar and the radio show King Biscuit Time lit the spark, and recordings by T-Bone Walker convinced him he needed an electric guitar. In 1946 he hitched to Memphis to stay with his cousin, the bluesman Bukka White, and soon returned for good, determined to make music his living rather than sharecropping.

Memphis gave him a platform. He appeared on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio show in West Memphis and then landed his own spot on WDIA, where he became known as the Beale Street Blues Boy, shortened to B.B. He cut his first records in 1949, and Three O'Clock Blues topped the R&B chart in early 1952. From then on he toured relentlessly, playing hundreds of dates a year on the chitlin' circuit; in 1956 alone he booked more than three hundred shows.

In the 1960s he moved to ABC-Paramount and in 1964 recorded Live at the Regal in Chicago, a set he considered his finest recording and that many guitarists treat as a textbook. As young rock players such as Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield praised him, white audiences discovered him at venues like the Fillmore. The Thrill Is Gone, with its string arrangement, became a crossover hit and won him a Grammy in 1970, and Live in Cook County Jail followed the same year.

King spent the rest of his life as the blues' foremost ambassador. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, teamed with U2 on When Love Comes to Town in 1988, and made the Grammy-winning Riding with the King with Clapton in 2000. He opened blues clubs, received the Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and kept performing well into his eighties despite diabetes. He died in Las Vegas in 2015 at the age of 89.

The 10 greatest B.B. King solos

1. 1
   The Thrill Is Gone

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1969
2. 2
   Every Day I Have the Blues

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1965
3. 3
   Sweet Little Angel

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1965
4. 4
   How Blue Can You Get?

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1965
5. 5
   Three O'Clock Blues

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1951
6. 6
   Sweet Sixteen

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1971
7. 7
   Rock Me Baby

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1964
8. 8
   Why I Sing the Blues

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1969
9. 9
   Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

   B.B. King · solo by B.B. King · 1968
10. 10
    Riding with the King

    B.B. King & Eric Clapton · solo by B.B. King and Eric Clapton · 2000

The sound

B.B. King rarely played fast and seldom strummed chords behind his singing; instead he treated the guitar as a second voice that answered his vocals. His trademark was a quick, shimmering vibrato made by shaking his left hand from the wrist, combined with precise bends that landed exactly on pitch. He favored a clean, round, slightly compressed tone from semi-hollow Gibsons, and he used silence as deliberately as sound, leaving space between phrases so each one hit harder. Borrowing from gospel, jazz and T-Bone Walker, he built a phrasing style that almost every later blues and rock guitarist absorbed.

• Fender Esquire (guitar) An early-career guitar from his Memphis years, played through Fender tweed amps.
• Gibson ES-355 "Lucille" (guitar) The semi-hollow Gibson he is most associated with, always named Lucille.
• Gibson B.B. King Lucille model (guitar) A 1980 signature ES-355 variant without f-holes to cut feedback, with a Varitone selector.
• Lab Series L5 (amp) A solid-state 2x12 combo he favored for decades for its clean, reliable tone.
• Fender Twin Reverb (amp) Another clean, loud amp he used on stage.
• Varitone tone selector (effect) The built-in notch filter on his ES-355s that shaped his vocal, slightly nasal lead sound.

Covers

• The Thrill Is Gone, originally by Roy Hawkins He transformed an obscure blues into a string-laden classic that eclipsed the original.
• Three O'Clock Blues, originally by Lowell Fulson His version became his first chart-topper and launched his career.
• Night Life, originally by Willie Nelson He brought a country songwriter's lament firmly into the blues.
• Hold On! I'm Comin', originally by Sam & Dave A joyful soul romp shared with Eric Clapton.
• Worried Life Blues, originally by Big Maceo Merriweather A relaxed reading of a prewar standard with Clapton on second guitar.
• Come Rain or Come Shine, originally by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer (St. Louis Woman, 1946) A nod to his love of popular song, sung with warm, unhurried feeling.

Timeline

• 1925 Born near Itta Bena, Mississippi
• 1946 Moves to Memphis to stay with cousin Bukka White
• 1948 Performs on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio show in West Memphis
• 1949 Makes his first recordings
• 1952 Three O'Clock Blues reaches number one on the R&B chart
• 1964 Records Live at the Regal in Chicago
• 1970 Wins a Grammy for The Thrill Is Gone
• 1987 Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• 2000 Releases Riding with the King with Eric Clapton
• 2015 Dies in Las Vegas at 89

Facts

1. His guitars were named Lucille after a woman two men were fighting over when their brawl set a dance hall ablaze.
2. He ran back into that burning building to rescue his guitar, and named it as a reminder never to do so again.
3. The initials B.B. come from his radio nickname, the Beale Street Blues Boy.
4. He worked as a disc jockey on WDIA in Memphis early in his career.
5. In 1956 he booked more than 340 concerts.
6. He was a licensed private pilot who learned to fly in 1963.
7. He called himself a huge Frank Sinatra fan.
8. He presented a Lucille guitar to Pope John Paul II in 1997.
9. Gibson's 1980 Lucille model has no f-holes, a change made to reduce feedback at high volume.
10. Albert King and Freddie King, fellow Kings of the Blues, were not related to him.

Sources

• Wikipedia: B.B. King