成人快手

by Claudia Elliott

Master bluesman, singer and showman BB King, who died aged 89 on 14 May, influenced a generation of guitar players including , Jeff Beck and The Beatles’ George Harrison.

Thanks to his landmark album and his hit singles and The Thrill Is Gone (1969), he was able to take the blues to a white audience and became revered around the world. One of the inspirations for the British blues boom, he also recorded or performed with the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green, among others.

King’s loss is also deeply felt because he was the last of the blues giants rooted in the cotton plantations of the American South, where he grew up experiencing poverty and racism. Born Riley B King near Itta Bena, Mississippi, he was brought up by his grandmother, having lost his mother when he was nine. As a teenager he drove a tractor and later sang at Memphis nightclubs, which led to a DJ spot on all-black radio station WDIA, where he was billed ‘Beale Street Blues Boy’, shortened to BB. Ike Turner spotted him and he was signed to Modern Records. He had his first US R&B number one, Three O’Clock, in 1952, produced by the legendary Sam Phillips of Sun Studio.

expressive style of playing was distinguished by a shimmering one-note vibrato that made his guitar ‘sing’. Although his sound became less commercially successful as soul and R&B took over the charts in the 1960s, BB continued to perform in small clubs. His landmark album Live At The Regal won him a new audience of rock fans. The first time he played in front of a young white crowd, at the San Francisco Fillmore in 1967, they jumped up and cheered each song. A nervous BB, who’d witnessed racist lynching as a boy, broke down in tears at the unexpected ovation.

He continued touring until a few months before his death. His final ‘show’ was his memorial parade, where thousands of fans worldwide watched as BB and his guitar named Lucille (carried by the son of soul singer Bobby Bland, his former chauffeur) finally came home to rest in Mississippi.

The King is gone, but the thrill of the blues lives on.