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Guitarist B.B. King, 87, Still on Stage
The blues guitarist who Rolling Stone magazine ranked at No. 6 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time is still touring, though he’s decreased his on-time schedule of performing 300 nights a year. And the boy who grew up on a cotton plantation in Mississippi now has a museum and radio station named for him. Click here to view article.
Legendary blues guitarist B.B. King has tour dates lined up through July 14, 2013, which wouldn’t be unusual except the man is 87 and has been performing since 1949. Over a period of 64 years, King has played in excess of 15,000 performances.
On its list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No. 6, and Gibson’s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time has him at No. 17. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, King is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname “The King of Blues.”
He was born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925, in a small cabin on a cotton plantation in Itta Bena, Miss. Raised by his maternal grandmother, King got his first guitar at age 12 and played on street corners for dimes. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, Tenn., the Southern mecca for musicians and where every style of African American music could be found. There his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues performers of his time, continued King’s education of art of the blues.
King’s first big break came in 1948 when he performed on a radio program in West Memphis. This led to steady engagements at a local club and later to a ten-minute spot on the legendary Memphis radio station WDIA. King’s spot became so popular that it was expanded. It was during this time that the man known as the Beale Street Blues Boy shortened his name to Blues Boy King and then just B.B. King.
In the 1950s, King was performing at a venue where two fighting men knocked over a kerosene lamp and started a fire. Though King made it out safely, he ran back to retrieve his guitar and narrowly escaped. He later found out that the men had been fighting over a woman named Lucille, and since then, he has named each of his Gibson guitars Lucille.
In 1956, when he founded his own record label, Blues Boys Kingdom, he had become a popular figure in rhythm and blues (R&B) music, with a long list of hits, including “3 O’Clock Blues.” That year, King began touring nationally, played an amazing 342 one-night stands and becoming one of the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years.
In 1968, King was first introduced to a young white audience when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival and at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West with rock stars who admired him. The following year, the Rolling Stones chose King to open 18 American concerts for them. In 1970, King continued his accomplishments by winning a Grammy Award for “The Thrill Is Gone.”
Since then, King has remained in the public eye, appearing on numerous television shows and one movie (The Blues Brothers 2000) and performing 300 nights a year, including at the 1988 Republican National Convention. This started a friendship with the Bush family; in 1990 George H.W. Bush awarded King the Presidential Medal of the Arts, and in 2008 George W. Bush presented him with the Medal of Freedom.
In 2008, King was honored with his own museum—the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianoloa, Miss.—and with a radio station: Sirius XM Radio’s Bluesville channel was renamed B.B. King’s Bluesville.
His music has taken him far and wide: England, Switzerland, Brazil, France, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Denmark and Morocco. In February 2012, King performed at “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues,” a celebration of blues music, with President Obama singing along to “Sweet Home Chicago.”
What’s left for this performer who shows no signs of retiring?
Source: Wikipedia and BBKing.com
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