BB King was known as the King of the Blues

Riley B. King

 

(1925 - ) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An American blues singer and guitarist who was raised on a black tenant farm in Indianola, Mississippi, Riley King's resume speaks volumes of how he has influenced a style of music performed by many well-known artists. Riley B. King was born on September 25, 1925 to two sharecroppers, Albert and Nora Ella King.  His place of birth was the small town of Berclair, Mississippi.4

 

After leaving the plantation and traveling to Memphis, he first took the name Blues Boy,while working as a blues singer, guitarist and disc jockey for the WDIA radio station. One of his first paid studio works  included writing commercial jingles for a product called pepticon.

 

As a self-taught blues guitar player, BB King's story is truly inspiring and to attempt to summarize it in one short article would be an exercise in futility.  Riley King actually started as a guitar player of gospel music. In the early 1960s, BB King's most notable breakthrough came when many British rock musicians, such as John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger adopted his style and techniques. Since then his performances attract an international and multi-racial following and reputation.  BB King has performed with countless musicians and bands and has even been honored by presidents, kings and queens, as well as the Pope. 

 

By watching interviews of BB King or by reading about his story, you would learn about the  various artists who influenced him.  Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Charlie Christian, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker, and Muddy Waters are some of the great early blues and jazz artists who had a profound impact on the BB King. His guitar playing, though, is distinctive, emphasizing his legendary bends and vibratos that so many other blues guitarists have attempted to mimic.  BB King is at his best when he performs blues in a tradition of combining speech and song.

 

BB King's early recordings reveal a distinctive mixture of jazz, swing, gospel and rhythm-and-blues styles which he synthesized without a trace of stylistic inconsistency or incongruity. While, his recording of Three O’Clock Blues brought him some success in 1952, one of his greatest hits is the "Thrill is Gone", which put blues on the popular music charts. There are too many good recordings to list in one article, yet "Live at the Cook County Jail (1970, ABC)" is arguably one of the greatest blues albums of all times.

 

The many grammy's that BB King has won, proves that he has driven blues to a certain level of respectability never achieved before the mid to late 1960s.  Yet, despite the many decades in which he has enjoyed considerable commercial success, BB King has emphasized in a recent concert that the new blues artists must work hard to earn the respect of the commercial music industry.

 

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