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Riley B. King aka B. B. King (born September
16, 1925) is a well known American blues guitarist and songwriter. One of King's trademarks is naming
his guitars "Lucille", a tradition that began in the 1950s.
In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. In order to heat the hall, a barrel half-filled with kerosene was lit, a not uncommon practice. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the burning
barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. This triggered an evacuation. Once outside, King realized that he had left his
guitar inside the burning building. He entered the blaze to retrieve his guitar, a Gibson
acoustic. Two people died in the fire. The next day, King discovered that the two men were fighting over a woman named
Lucille. King named that first guitar Lucille, as well as every one he owned since that near-fatal experience, "to remind me
never to do a thing like that again."
King spent much of his childhood sharing time living with his mother and his grandmother and working as a sharecropper. At an
early age, King developed a love for blues artists like T-Bone Walker and
Lonnie Johnson and jazz artists like Charlie Christian and Django
Reinhardt. Soon King was cultivating his own musical skills singing Gospel
music in church.
King was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi. In
1943, King moved to Indianola, Mississippi. Three years later, King moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he finely tuned his guitar technique with the help of his cousin, country
blues guitarist Bukka White.
Eventually, King began broadcasting his music live on Memphis radio station WDIA, a station that had only recently changed
their format to play all-black music which was extremely rare at the time. On the air, King started out using the name
The Peptikon Boy, which
later became the Beale Street Blues Boy. The name was then shortened to just Blues Boy and,
eventually, simply B.B.
In 1949, King began recording songs under contract with Los Angeles based RPM Records. Many of King's early recordings were produced by Sam Phillips, who would eventually found the legendary Sun
Records.
In the 1950s, King became one of the most important names in R&B music, collecting an impressive list of hits under his belt that included songs like "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." In 1962, King signed to ABC-Paramount Records.
In November of 1964, King recorded the
legendary Live at the Regal album at the Regal Theater in Chicago.
King first found success outside of the blues market with the 1969 remake of the
Roy Hawkins tune, "The Thrill Is
Gone," which became a hit on both pop and R&B charts, which is rare for an R&B artist even today. King's mainstream
success continued throughout the 1970s with songs like "To Know You Is to Love You" and
"I Like to Live the Love." From 1951 to 1985, King
appeared on Billboard's R&B charts an amazing 74 times.
The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s saw King recording less and less, but maintaining a highly visible and active career appearing on
numberous television shows, major motion pictures and performing 300 nights a year.
In 2000, King teamed up with guitarist Eric Clapton to record Riding With the King.
In 2004, King was awarded an honarary Ph.D from theUniversity of Mississippi. King had also donated his
extensive blues collection to the Ole Miss Center for Southern Studies.
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