Tribute: One last ride with the King

“The King of Blues”, is without mistake an apt title for Riley B King, known to all blues fans and music lovers around the world as BB King. A tireless performer with a child like smile, BB King stole everyone’s hearts with his smooth solos and his husky, full throated vocals averaging around 250 performances a year even in his seventies. His style was self made from his inability to play the slide guitar as he admitted, which pioneered a whole generation of Rhythm and Blues and Electric Blues and was instrumental in paving a the playing style of several guitarists to come after him; Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield and Stevie Ray Vaughn being a few that need to be mentioned.

BB King is without doubt the most successful Blues performer in the world, and his guitar sweetly called Lucille is the most well known guitar. One day when King was performing in a club, a fistfight that broke out between two men knocked over the kerosene lamps and set the building on fire, King braved the flames to save his guitar. When he found out that the fight broke out between the two men who died in that building for a woman named Lucille, he decided to call his guitar ‘Lucille’ as a reminder to never fight over a woman or run into a burning building. So far there had been 17 Lucilles.

King was always in great admiration of Frank Sinatra as he mentioned in his 1996 autobiography, he acknowledges and appreciates Sinatra’s help in getting King into the main clubs of Las Vegas and for opening the doors to many other “Black” artistes and entertainers in prominently “White” dominated venues. As a man who came from a simple upbringing raised by his maternal grandfather, he was a self taught guitarist learning from the radio on a guitar that he got when he was 12 years old – now, whether he bought his guitar or it was gifted by the famous Bukka White, who was a very well known American Delta Bluesman is unknown but it gave blues its best performer and the reigning King of the blues. He played from “dirt floor, smoke in the air” joints to grand concert halls and showed the world that blues is not just twist and juke joint music, but is universal.

His simplicity might have been his biggest strengths, as he was not a purist in the blues and was able to draw inspiration from several styles of playing guitar. None can make a guitar sing like he could. He started to develop an audience with his initial performances on radio and learnt a bit of the blues from Bukka White in Memphis, Tennessee. His professional career was never on a low from when he began recording in 1949 when he was 24-years-old to the very end. He kept himself busy to the bone; he even flew himself to his concerts being an FAA certified pilot.

He was unparalleled with 15 Grammies and many other awards including a Honorary Doctorate in Music from Yale in 1977, an induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, The Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 1987 and 3rd Greatest guitarist of all time in 2003 in The Rolling Stone rankings and 6th in 2006 in the same magazine. His collaborations with U2 in 1988 opened him up to a whole new generation of fans. He even performed at Vatican at their annual Christmas Concert in 1997 and presented ‘Lucille’ to Pope John Paul II. His album with Eric Clapton, ‘Riding with the King’ won the Grammy Award for the Best Traditional Blues Album.

On October 3, 2014 King had to stop his performance in House of Blues, Illinois, Chicago. King was diagnosed with exhaustion and dehydration by the doctor and had to cancel his shows for the rest of the year. That was the last time one had the good fortune to watch the King on stage with his Lucille. BB King stood as an inspiration in art and philanthropy, an official supporter of “Little Kids Rock” a non-profit organization that provides free musical instruments to children in underprivileged school across USA, apart from regularly performing for prisoners. He even began the ‘Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Recreation and Rehabilitation’ for the prisoners.

It would bring tears to any bluesman and a fan of electric blues to bid adieu to the King and one cannot help but reminisce the King and to take on last ride with him.

Nutan Mallepalli