Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists.[6]
King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname "The King of the Blues", and is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert and Freddie King).[7][8][9] King performed tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing on average at more than 200 concerts per year into his 70s.[10] In 1956 alone, he appeared at 342 shows.[11]
While young, King sang in the gospel choir at Elkhorn Baptist Church in Kilmichael. King was attracted to the PentecostalChurch of God in Christ because of its music. The local minister performed with a Sears Roebuck Silvertone guitar during services. The minister taught King his first three chords.[16] It seems that at the age of 12 he purchased his first guitar for $15.00,[14] although another source indicates he was given his first guitar by Bukka White, his mother's first cousin (King's grandmother and White's mother were sisters).[17]
In November 1941, "King Biscuit Time" first aired, broadcasting on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. It was a radio show featuring the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened to it while on break at a plantation. A self-taught guitarist, he then wanted to become a radio musician.[18]
In 1946, King followed Bukka White to Memphis, Tennessee. White took him in for the next ten months.[14] However, King returned to Mississippi shortly afterward, where he decided to prepare himself better for the next visit, and returned to West Memphis, Arkansas, two years later in 1948. He performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM in West Memphis, where he began to develop an audience. King's appearances led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a ten-minute spot on the Memphis radio station WDIA.[21] The radio spot became so popular that it was expanded and became the Sepia Swing Club.[22]
He worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname "Beale Street Blues Boy", later shortened to "Blues Boy", and finally to B.B.[23][24][25] It was there that he first met T-Bone Walker. King said, "Once I'd heard him for the first time, I knew I'd have to have [an electric guitar] myself. 'Had' to have one, short of stealing!"[26]
Career
1949–2005
King playing his favorite guitar, Lucille, in the 1980s
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, King was a part of the blues scene on Beale Street. "Beale Street was where it all started for me," King said. He performed with Bobby Bland, Johnny Ace and Earl Forrest in a group called The Beale Streeters.[27]
According to King and Joe Bihari, Ike Turner introduced King to the Bihari brothers while he was a talent scout at Modern Records.[28][17] In 1949, King began recording songs under contract with Los Angeles-based RPM Records, a subsidiary of Modern. Many of King's early recordings were produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. Before his RPM contract, King had debuted on Bullet Records by issuing the single, "Miss Martha King" (1949), which did not chart well. "My very first recordings [in 1949] were[sic] for a company out of Nashville called Bullet, the Bullet Record Transcription company," King recalled. "I had horns that very first session. I had Phineas Newborn on piano; his father played drums, and his brother, Calvin, played guitar with me. I had Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch on tenor sax, his brother, Thomas, on trumpet, and a lady trombone player. The Newborn family were the house band at the famous Plantation Inn in West Memphis."[29]
King assembled his own band; the B.B. King Review, under the leadership of Millard Lee. The band initially consisted of Calvin Owens and Kenneth Sands (trumpet), Lawrence Burdin (alto saxophone), George Coleman (tenor saxophone),[30]Floyd Newman (baritone saxophone), Millard Lee (piano), George Joyner (bass) and Earl Forest and Ted Curry (drums). Onzie Horne was a trained musician elicited as an arranger to assist King with his compositions. By his own admission, King could not play chords well and always relied on improvisation.[31]
King's recording contract was followed by tours across the United States, with performances in major theaters in cities such as Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and St. Louis, as well as numerous gigs in small clubs and juke joints of the southern United States. During one show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men and caused a fire. He evacuated along with the rest of the crowd but went back to retrieve his guitar. He said he later found out that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named the guitar Lucille, as a reminder not to fight over women or run into any more burning buildings.[32][33][34]
Following his first BillboardRhythm and Blues charted number one, "3 O'Clock Blues" (February 1952),[35] B.B. King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, amassing an impressive list of hits[25] including "You Know I Love You", "Woke Up This Morning", "Please Love Me", "When My Heart Beats like a Hammer", "Whole Lotta Love", "You Upset Me Baby", "Every Day I Have the Blues", "Sneakin' Around", "Ten Long Years", "Bad Luck", "Sweet Little Angel", "On My Word of Honor", and "Please Accept My Love". This led to a significant increase in his weekly earnings, from about $85 to $2,500,[36] with appearances at major venues such as the Howard Theater in Washington and the Apollo in New York, as well as touring the "Chitlin' Circuit". 1956 became a record-breaking year, with 342 concerts booked and three recording sessions.[37] That same year he founded his own record label, Blues Boys Kingdom, with headquarters at Beale Street in Memphis. There, among other projects, he was a producer for artists such as Millard Lee and Levi Seabury.[15] In 1962, King signed to ABC-Paramount Records, which was later absorbed into MCA Records (which itself was later absorbed into Geffen Records). In November 1964, King recorded the Live at the Regal album at the Regal Theater.[35] King later said that Regal Live "is considered by some the best recording I've ever had . . . that particular day in Chicago everything came together . . ."[38]
From the late 1960s, new manager Sid Seidenberg pushed King into a different type of venue as blues-rock performers like Eric Clapton (once a member of The Yardbirds, as well as Cream), and Paul Butterfield were popularizing an appreciation of blues music among white audiences.[39] King gained further visibility among rock audiences as an opening act on the Rolling Stones' 1969 American Tour.[40] He won a 1970 Grammy Award for his version of the song "The Thrill Is Gone;"[41] which was a hit on both the Pop and R&B charts. It also gained the number 183 spot in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[42]
King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2014.[10][43] In 2004, he was awarded the international Polar Music Prize, given to artists "in recognition of exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music."[44]
From the 1980s to his death in 2015, he maintained a highly visible and active career, appearing on numerous television shows and sometimes performing 300 nights a year. In 1988, King reached a new generation of fans with the single "When Love Comes to Town," a collaborative effort between King and the Irish band U2 on their Rattle and Hum album.[35] In December 1997, he performed in the Vatican's fifth annual Christmas concert and presented his trademark guitar "Lucille" to Pope John Paul II.[45][46] In 1998, he appeared in The Blues Brothers 2000, playing the part of the lead singer of the Louisiana Gator Boys, along with Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Koko Taylor and Bo Diddley. In 2000, he and Clapton teamed up again to record Riding With the King, which won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.[47]
Discussing where he took the Blues, from "dirt floor, smoke in the air" joints to grand concert halls, King said the Blues belonged everywhere beautiful music belonged. He successfully worked both sides of the commercial divide, with sophisticated recordings and "raw, raucous" live performance.[38]
In late October 2006, King recorded a concert album and video entitled B.B. King: Live at his B.B. King Blues Clubs in Nashville and Memphis. The video of the four-night production featured his regular B.B. King Blues Band and captured his show as he performed it nightly around the world. Released in 2008, they documented his first live performances in over a decade.[53]
On February 21, 2012, King was among the performers of "In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues," during which President Barack Obama sang part of "Sweet Home Chicago".[65] King recorded for the debut album of rapper and producer Big K.R.I.T., who also hails from Mississippi.[66] On July 5, 2012, King performed a concert at the Byblos International Festival in Lebanon.[67]
On October 3, 2014, after completing his live performance at the House of Blues in Chicago, a doctor diagnosed King with dehydration and exhaustion, and the eight remaining shows of his ongoing tour had to be cancelled. King did not reschedule the shows, and the House of Blues show would prove to be the last before his death in 2015.[69][70]
When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.[71]
B.B. King used equipment characteristic of the different periods he played in. He played guitars made by various manufacturers early in his career. He played a Fender Esquire on most of his recordings with RPM Records.[72] However, he was best known for playing variants of the Gibson ES-355.
In the September edition 1995 of Vintage Guitar magazine, early photos show him playing a Gibson ES-5 through a Fender tweed amp. In reference to the photo, B.B. King stated, "Yes; the old Fender amplifiers were the best that were ever made, in my opinion. They had a good sound and they were durable; guys would throw them in the truck and they’d hold up. They had tubes, and they’d get real hot, but they just had a sound that is hard to put into words. The Fender Twin was great, but I have an old Lab Series amp that isn’t being made anymore. I fell in love with it, because its sound is right between the old Fender amps that we used to have and the Fender Twin. It’s what I’m using tonight."[73]
He later moved on from the larger Gibson hollow bodied instruments which were prone to feedback when played a high volumes to various semi-hollow models beginning first with the ES-335 and then a deluxe version called the ES-355 which employed a stereo option.[73] In 1980, Gibson Guitar Corporation launched the B.B. King Lucille model, a ES-355 with stereo options, a varitone selector and fine tuners (neither of which were actually utilized by B.B.) and, at King's direct request, no f-holes to further reduce feedback. In 2005, Gibson made a special run of 80 Gibson Lucilles, referred to as the "80th Birthday Lucille", the first prototype of which was given as a birthday gift to King, and which he used thereafter.[74]
King used a Lab Series L5 2×12" combo amplifier and had been using this amplifier for a long time. It was made by Norlin Industries for Gibson in the 1970s and 1980s. Other popular L5 users are Allan Holdsworth and Ty Tabor of King's X. The L5 has an onboard compressor, parametric equalization, and four inputs. King also used a Fender Twin Reverb.[75]
He used his signature model strings "Gibson SEG-BBS B.B. King Signature Electric Guitar Strings" with gauges: 10–13–17p–32w–45w–54w and D'Andrea 351 MD SHL CX (medium 0.71mm, tortoise shell, celluloid) picks.[75]
In 1991, Beale Street developer John Elkington recruited B.B. King to Memphis to open the original B.B. King's Blues Club, and in 1994, a second club was launched at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles. A third club in New York City's Times Square opened in June 2000 but closed on April 29, 2018. Management is currently in the process of finding a new location in New York City.[76] Two more clubs opened, at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut in January 2002,[77] and in Nashville in 2003.[78] Another club opened in Orlando in 2007.[79] A club in West Palm Beach opened in the fall of 2009[80] and an additional one, based in the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas, opened in the winter of 2009.[81] Another opened in the New OrleansFrench Quarter in 2016.[82]
In 2000, the children's show, Between The Lions, featured a singing character named "B.B. the King of Beasts", modeled on the real King.[85]
B.B. King: The Life of Riley, a feature documentary about King narrated by Morgan Freeman and directed by Jon Brewer, was released on October 15, 2012.[86]
Commercials
King, who was diabetic, appeared in several television commercials for OneTouch Ultra, a blood glucose monitoring device, in the 2000s and early 2010s.[87] He appeared in 1995 in a McDonald's commercial with Australian guitarist Nathan Cavaleri, and then in a commercial for the Toyota Camry with his guitar Lucille.[88]
Personal life
King was married twice, to Martha Lee Denton, November 1946 to 1952, and to Sue Carol Hall, 1958 to 1966. The failure of both marriages has been attributed to the heavy demands made by King's 250 performances a year.[14][89] It is reported that he fathered 15 children with several different women.[14][12] After his death, three more have come forward, claiming King as their father as well.[90] Though neither of his marriages produced children, and biographer Charles Sawyer wrote that doctors found his sperm count too low to conceive children,[91] King never disputed paternity of any of the 15 who claimed it, and by all accounts was generous in bankrolling college tuitions and establishing trust funds.[90] In May 2016, the 11 surviving children initiated legal proceedings against King's appointed trustee over his estimated $30 million to $40 million estate. Several of them also went public with the allegation that King's business manager, LaVerne Toney, and his personal assistant, Myron Johnson, had fatally poisoned him. Autopsy results showed no evidence of poisoning. A defamation suit filed by Johnson against the accusing family members (including his own sister, Karen Williams) is pending. Other children have filed lawsuits targeting King's music estate, which remains in dispute.[90]
King was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1990.[92] He lived with diabetes for over 20years, and was a high-profile spokesman in the fight against the disease.[49][93]
King was an FAA certified private pilot and learned to fly in 1963 at what was then Chicago Hammond Airport in Lansing, Illinois.[94][95] He frequently flew to gigs but in 1995 his insurance company and manager asked him to fly only with another certified pilot. As a result, he stopped flying around the age of 70.[96]
King's favorite singer was Frank Sinatra. In his autobiography he spoke about how he was a "Sinatra nut" and how he went to bed every night listening to Sinatra's classic album In the Wee Small Hours. During the 1960s Sinatra had arranged for King to play at the main clubs in Las Vegas. He credited Sinatra for opening doors to black entertainers who were not given the chance to play in "white-dominated" venues.[97]
In September 1970, King recorded Live in Cook County Jail, during a time in which issues of race[99] and class in the prison system were prominent in politics. King also co-founded the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Rehabilitation and Recreation, tying in his support for prisoners and interest in prison reform.[99] In addition to prison reform, King also wanted to utilize prison performances as a way to preserve music and songs in a similar way that Alan Lomax did.[100]
In 2002, King signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underprivileged public schools throughout the United States. He sat on the organization's Honorary Board of Directors.[101]
In the 2000s to early 2010s, King[92] was also involved in a diabetes awareness campaign with American Idol contestant, Crystal Bowersox, with One Touch Ultra, starring in commercials promoting diabetes health management.[102][103]
The remaining eight shows of his 2014 tour were cancelled because of health problems caused by complications from high blood pressure and diabetes.[70][104][105] King died in his sleep on May 14, 2015, at the age of 89,[18] from vascular dementia caused by a series of small strokes as a consequence of his type 2 diabetes.[106] Two of his daughters alleged that King was deliberately poisoned by two associates trying to induce diabetic shock,[107] however an autopsy showed no evidence of poisoning.[104][108]
Commemorative guitar pick honoring "B.B. King Day" in Portland, Maine
1995: The Kennedy Center Honors; given to recognize "the lifelong accomplishments and extraordinary talents of our nation's most prestigious artists"[123]
1998: Grammy Hall of Fame Award for "The Thrill is Gone"; the award is given to recordings that are at least 25years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance"[124]
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer, songwriter and musician. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's poorly documented life and death have given rise to much legend. The one most closely associated with his life is that he sold his soul to the devil at a local crossroads to achieve musical success. He is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly as a progenitor of the Delta blues style.
William Christopher Handy was a composer and musician, and called himself the Father of the Blues. An African American, Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.
Indianola is a city in Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. The population was 10,683 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Sunflower County.
The Memphis blues is a style of blues music created from the 1910s to the 1930s by musicians in the Memphis area, like Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie. The style was popular in vaudeville and medicine shows and was associated with Beale Street, the main entertainment area in Memphis, W. C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues", published the song "The Memphis Blues". In lyrics, the phrase has been used to describe a depressed mood.
Memphis Slim was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. A song he first cut in 1947, "Every Day I Have the Blues", has become a blues standard, recorded by many other artists. He made over 500 recordings.
Robert Lockwood Jr. was an American Delta blues guitarist, who recorded for Chess Records and other Chicago labels in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the only guitarist to have learned to play directly from Robert Johnson. Lockwood is known for his longtime collaboration with Sonny Boy Williamson II and for his work in the mid-1950s with Little Walter.
Arnold Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore was an American blues and gospel singer, songwriter, radio disc jockey, community leader and pastor, later known as Reverend Gatemouth Moore. During his career as a recording artist, Moore worked with Bennie Moten, Tommy Douglas and Walter Barnes, and his songs were recorded by B.B. King and Rufus Thomas. He was noted for his mellow singing voice, much in the style of Billy Eckstine.
Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 km). It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of the blues. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are major tourist attractions in Memphis. Festivals and outdoor concerts periodically bring large crowds to the street and its surrounding areas.
Albert Nelson, known by his stage name Albert King, was an American blues guitarist and singer whose playing influenced many other blues guitarists. He is perhaps best known for the popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and its title track. He is one of the three performers known as the "Kings of the Blues." King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists."
Arkansas is a Southern state of the United States. Arkansas's musical heritage includes country music and various related styles like bluegrass and rockabilly.
Robert "Wolfman" Belfour was an American blues musician. He was born in Red Banks, Mississippi. When he was a child, his father, Grant Belfour, taught him to play the guitar, and he continued his tutelage in the blues from the musicians Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Kimbrough, in particular, had a profound influence on him. His music was rooted in Mississippi hill country traditions, in contrast to Delta blues. His playing was characterized by a percussive attack and alternate tunings.
Frank Stokes was an American blues musician, songster, and blackface minstrel, who is considered by many musicologists to be the father of the Memphis blues guitar style.
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a blues standard first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1936. Although he is often credited as the songwriter, several songs have been identified as precedents. The song has become a popular anthem for the city of Chicago despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics. Numerous artists have interpreted the song in a variety of styles.
Lucille is the name B.B. King gave to his guitars. They were usually black Gibson guitars similar to the ES-345-355.
Indianola Mississippi Seeds is B. B. King's eighteenth studio album. It was released on October 1970 on ABC Records on LP and May 1989 on MCA Records on CD. On this album B. B. King mixed elements of blues and rock music. Producer Bill Szymczyk decided to follow up on the success of the hit "The Thrill Is Gone" by matching King with a musical all-star cast. The result was one of King's most critically acclaimed albums and one of the most highly regarded blues crossover albums of all time.
"Worried Life Blues" is a blues standard and one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. Originally recorded by Big Maceo Merriweather in 1941, "Worried Life Blues" was an early blues hit and Maceo's most recognized song. An earlier song inspired it and several artists have had record chart successes with their interpretations of the song.
Dan Sane was an American Memphis blues and country blues guitarist and songwriter. He was an associate of Frank Stokes. According to the Music journalist Jason Ankeny, "they had emerged among the most complementary duos in all of the blues, with Sane's flatpicking ideally embellished by Stokes' fluid rhythms." The best-known of the songs written by Sane are "Downtown Blues" and "Mr. Crump Don't Like It." His surname was sometimes spelled "Sain".
The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center is a Delta blues museum with the mission to "empower, unite and heal through music, art and education and share with the world the rich cultural heritage of the Mississippi Delta." The museum, named for blues legend, B.B. King, is located in his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, in the United States.
Preston Shannon was an American electric blues and soul blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.
William G. Harvey was an American rhythm and blues saxophonist and bandleader.
1 2 Herzhaft, Gérard (1997). "B.B. King". Encyclopedia of the Blues. Translated by Brigitte Debord (2nd ed.). Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press. pp.108–110. ISBN1610751396.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Troupe, Quincy (June 4, 1958). "BB King: American Blues Musician, b. 1925". Jazzandbluesmasters.com. Retrieved February 17, 2010. ...was born on a cotton plantation, in Itta Bene [sic], Mississippi, just outside the delta town of Indianola.
1 2 Sebastian Danchin, Blues Boy: The Life and Music of B.B. King, University Press of Mississippi, 1998, p. 1 ( ISBN1-57806-017-6)
↑ Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture. Edited by Jessie Carney Smith. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California. 2011. ISBN978-0-313-35796-1, pp. 805–806.
↑ Note: "B.B." is normally written with periods and without a space between the letters.
↑ History of Rock & Roll. By Thomas E. Larson. Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa. 2004. ISBN978-0-7872-9969-9, p. 25.
↑ "B.B. King [Timeline]". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved April 6, 2015. 1980: B.B. King is inducted into the first class of the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame.
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