GUITAR WOLF...B.B.King

 


     B.B. King was pure class, from his exquisite licks to his heartfelt vocals. Brought up on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, he was born Riley B. King in 1925. 
     King taught himself to play and by 1946 had moved to Memphis with his cousin, slide guitarist Bukka White. Before long he was playing on local radio and scored a residency at a West Memphis grill. King soon gained his own show, where he was dubbed ‘Beale Street Blues Boy’, shortened to ‘Blues Boy’ and then ‘B.B.’.
     Several elements make King’s style unique. Prior to King, few guitarists used vibrato with such artistry, but he loved the fluttering sound of slide guitarists such as cousin Bukka White, and the powerful quiver created by blues harmonica player Little Walter. So he developed his own, by quickly rotating his finger while holding down a fretted note. 
     When the white blues boom of the 1960s exploded, artists like Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and Paul Butterfield used their success to champion their own heroes. Thus artists like King, who had previously been dubbed “race” acts, gained the mainstream appreciation that they rightly deserved. 

His Greatest Recordings

At Ease,1978

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