KING of the BLUES
Riley “B.B.” King started recording in the late 1940s, and has been the genre’s most recognizable and influential artist for decades. He is best-known for his single-note solos, trilling vibrato and powerful string bends on “Lucille” (the guitar he nicknamed). “The minute I stop singing orally, I sing by playing Lucille,” King said. His “relationship” with Lucille started in the mid-50s after he rescued the guitar from a nightclub fi re started by two men arguing over a woman named Lucille.
B.B. King began recording songs under contract with RPM Records in 1947. King was also a disc jockey in Memphis, where he gained the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “B.B.” Faithful to his blues roots, he has managed to keep his sound up-to-date by incorporating jazz and pop. A five-time Grammy Award winner, King has played more than 10,000 shows, over his nearly 60-year career. In the 1950s he became one of the most important names in R&B, with an impressive list of hits including You Know I Love You and Woke Up This Morning.
King credits his own favorite singer, Frank Sinatra, for opening doors to black entertainers who weren’t given the chance to play in “white dominated” venues. In his biography he still refers to himself as a “Sinatra nut” and describes how he went to bed each night listening to Sinatra’s classic album, In the Wee Small Hours.
Through the years, whenever the King of the Blues has carried his venerable guitar Lucille onto any stage at any time, the performance has become an unforgettable classic—and on occasion has been immortalized on some of the greatest live albums ever issued. Yet in 2006, he marked a first when he recorded a live album at two of his own clubs, B.B. King’s Blues Club in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 26 and 27 and in Memphis on October 29 and 30. On February 19, 2008, the best of these memorable concerts were released as LIVE! — available in DVD and CD formats.
The “King of the Blues” returns to the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall Sunday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m. For ticket information, call 481-4849.
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