15 May 2015

BB King, blues legend, dies aged 89

Blues singer and guitarist BB King, who influenced a generation of rock guitarists from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, has died aged 89. President Obama said: “The blues has lost its king.”

King was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the 1980s. He was hospitalised in April for a few days after suffering from dehydration related to the disease. In May he said in a Facebook post that he was in hospice care at his home.

He outlived all his fellow post-world war two blues greats – Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker – to see the rough music born in the cotton fields of the segregated south reach a new audience.

President Obama, who sang with King at a concert in the White House in 2012 (see video above), said:

“The blues has lost its king, and America has lost a legend… No-one worked harder than BB. No-one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No-one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.

The statement concluded: “BB may be gone, but that three will be with us forever. And there’s going to be one killer blues session in heaven tonight.”

‘Blues singer’

“Being a blues singer is like being black twice,” King wrote in his autobiography, Blues All Around Me, of the lack of respect the music got compared with rock and jazz.

“While the civil rights movement was fighting for the respect of black people, I felt I was fighting for the respect of the blues.”

BB King was born in the heart of the American south. His life followed a similar trajectory to that of the music he played – moving from playing for change on street corners to packing out stadiums.

Tennessee

He was born Riley King on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, but moved to Memphis, Tennessee, as a young man intent on a career in music, where he worked as a DJ and musician and teamed up with long-time collaborator Bobby “Blue” Bland while honing his craft. After world war two, King sang on street corners to pick up money. In 1947 he hitchhiked to Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned from and played with his cousin, revered blues guitarist Bukka White.

King went from touring black bars and dance halls in the 1940s and 1950s to headlining an all-blues show at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1970 and recording with the likes of Clapton and U2 in the 1990s. Albums such as Live at County Cook Jail and BB King in London followed.

King became a star on the rhythm and blues charts with 3 O’Clock Blues, Please Love Me, Every Day I Have the Blues and Sweet Little Angel. At his peak he was on stage 300 nights a year and playing to audiences all over the world – including the former Soviet Union and China. He still toured regularly into his eighties, although his show had been scaled back.

‘Lucille’

Throughout his career he updated his electric blues sound and worked with up-and-coming acts in jazz and rock but always stayed true to one thing – his guitar Lucille. The instrument, a hollow-body Gibson guitar which became his trademark, was replaced many times over the years but always kept the same name.