BB King

Born Riley B. King in Itta Bena, Mississippi on September 16, 1925, guitarist B.B. King is one of the most legendary blues guitarists and songwriters in American history. Known to all as the “King of Blues,” he continues to play and remains in the public eye, even at age 80. He still gives riveting performances, singing and playing blues and moving around stage with passion. A 2003 listing in Rolling Stone magazine declared B.B. King as the greatest living guitarist, and he was third on the list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” only surpassed by Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. Through the years, his popularity has only increased and his songs and performances have continued to profoundly affect the landscape of American popular music.

King spent most of his childhood years with his mother and grandmother, working as a sharecropper in Mississippi and earning only 35 cents per 100 pounds of cotton he picked before realizing his talent for music. From early on, King was in love with the blues, and admired many blues guitarists, including T-Bone Walker and Lonnie Johnson. He was born in the midst of the burgeoning jazz movement and fell in love with the music of artists such as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. Inspired by the different types of music he saw emerging, he began to sing in his church’s Gospel choir.

In 1943, King moved to the nearby town of Indianola, Mississippi, playing and singing music on street corners for money, often traveling to as many as four different towns in one night. Living as a struggling street musician for four years and dreaming of a career in music, he hitchhiked to Memphis, TN. Memphis was the capital of music in the southern United States during that time, and the city supported a very large community of African American musicians playing in every imaginable style. While in Memphis, King stayed with his cousin Bukka White, a major figure in blues music during that time. White taught him the art of blues and helped him continue to sharpen his technical skills as a blues guitarist and singer.

King’s career started to move forward much more quickly in 1948 when he performed live on Sonny Boy William’s son’s radio program, broadcast on KWEM in West Memphis. This performance drew a great deal of local attention to his impressive style and playing ability, and he started to perform regularly at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis. He later got a regular 10-minute radio program on an African American-run Memphis radio station. The station, WDIA had just changed their format to all African-American, and was one of the first in history to do so. His show, “King’s Spot” was such a huge hit that the station gave him more time and re-entitled it the “Sepia Swing Club.” Because the station was growing in scope and popularity, King, still going by his given name, decided to give himself a memorable radio name. He first tried out “Beale Street Blues Boy,” then “Blues Boy King,” until he landed on the shorter version, “B.B. King.”

In 1949, King got a contract with a Los Angeles-housed record company, RPM Records. Many of his early recordings were produced by legend Sam Phillips, who founded the blues-centric label Sun Records. Thanks to these original recordings and his outstanding live performances, King was a huge name in R & B music by the 1950’s, and had amassed a great number of hits, including “You Know I Love You,” “Woke Up This Morning,” “You Upset Me Baby,” “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer,” and “Sweet Little Angel,” among others.

On a winter night in the mid-1950’s, while playing a concert at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas, King had one of many life-changing experiences that would help shape and color his career. In order to heat the hall, a barrel of kerosene was lit, which was often done to cheaply provide warmth during that time. During King’s performance, two men got into a fight and knocked the flaming barrel over, triggering a fire. King and others were evacuated from the hall, and once outside, he realized he had left his Gibson acoustic inside, and re-entered to save it. When he asked what the men had been fighting about, he found out the cause of their quarrel was a woman named Lucille. In order to forever remember that event, he named his guitar, and every one he owned after it “Lucille.”

B.B. King began to tour nationally after releasing his number one hit, “Three O’Clock Blues” in 1956. That same year, he and his band played 342 one-night stands, starting an impressive career spent playing at venues that have included small-town cafes, juke joints, country dance halls, rock venues, symphony concert halls, amphitheaters and resort hotels.

In 1962, King signed to the major label ABC-Paramount Records, and began recording en masse, recording albums such as the “Live at the Regal” album, created at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois. He first made an impact outside the blues genre with his 1969 remake of an old Roy Hawkins song, “The Thrill is Gone,” which became a pop and R & B success, topping both charts. His mainstream success continued into the 1970’s and 1980’s with hits including “To Know You is To Love You” and “I Like to Live the Love.” During the years spanning 1951 – 1985, King had appeared on the Billboard R & B charts 74 different times.

During the next three decades, King stopped recording so frequently, but continued to perform live and make television and motion picture appearances. He maintained a performance schedule that included 300 shows per year. In 1984, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, followed in 1987 by the honor of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year he received NARAS’ Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and has many honorary doctorates from a variety of universities and colleges, including Tougaloo College, Yale University, Berklee College of Music, Rhodes College of Memphis and Mississippi Valley State University. In 1992 he received the prestigious National Award of Distinction from the University of Mississippi in his home state.

In 1988 he broadened his fan base even further and reached out to other musical genres by releasing the single “When Love Comes to Town” with Irish band U2, and in 2000, joined legendary rock guitarist Eric Clapton to record the album Riding With the King.

King has spent years creating a guitar style unlike any other that has been imitated by rock, R&B and jazz guitarists. He uses elements of great blues guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker and combines them with his own very exacting and complicated string bends that give the sound a vocal quality. All these elements combined with left-hand vibrato have become major parts of the guitar vocabulary. His phrasing and emphasis of each and every note has influenced guitarists in every style, from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jeff Beck. King mixes blues with jazz, swing, pop and characteristics of jump music.

This legendary blues guitarist uses many types of guitars and is one of the greatest electric guitar players in any genre. He often uses a Fender Telecaster, but is partial to Gibson’s, instruments, including the Gibson ES330, Gibson ES0335, Gibson ES5 and Gibson ES-175. He is most attached to the ES-355 and often plays his Lucille signature guitars, designed by Gibson.

B.B. King still averages about 250 playing engagements annually throughout the world, and has opened up many different clubs and restaurants in major and minor cities globally that have provided spaces for many of the world’s top musicians to share their music.

Sheet music and guitar tabs for many of B.B. Kings songs can be found at
BB King guitar sheet music.

DISCOGRAPHY

King of the Blues, 1960
My Kind of Blues, 1960
Live at the Regal, 1965
Lucille, 1968
Live and Well, 1969
Indianola Mississippi Seeds, 1970
B.B. King In London, 1971
Live in Cook County Jail, 1971
Lucille Talks Back, 1975
Live "Now Appearing" at Ole Miss, 1980
There Must Be a Better World Somewhere, 1981
Love Me Tender, 1982
Why I Sing the Blues, 1983
Live at San Quentin, 1991
Live at the Apollo, 1991
There is Always One More Time, 1991
Riding With The King, 2000
Reflections, 2003
The Ultimate Collection, 2005
B.B. King & Friends: 80, 2005