B.B. King has been called "King of the Blues", and has a unique style based on bending the strings on his hollow body Gibson guitar to make sounds that nobody has achieved before. He has had a huge influence on rock and blues guitarists, including Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
B.B. King was born in Itta Benna, Mississippi in 1925, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee in his early twenties, where he landed a job as a DJ and performer with the WDIA radio station, and also performed regularly at the Beele Street blues clubs.
He began recording with the RPM label in 1949, and his first hit "Three O'Clock Blues" made #1 on the R&B charts in 1951. Throughout the 1950s King produced a stream of classic recordings, including "Sweet Black Angel", "Every Day I Have the Blues", "You Know I Love You" and "You Upset Me Baby".
In the early 1960s, B.B. King switched to the ABC-Paramount label, and his studio recordings took on a smoother, more polished style. One of his biggest hits in this period was "The Thrill is Gone", with a string backdrop.
Throughout his long career, B.B. King has been constantly on tour, often performing more than 200 times in a year. His extraordinary talent and originality, and his warm personality, has won him a huge reputation among blues-lovers around the world.
The Thrill Is Gone
on Ralph Gleason's Jazz Casual 1968
How Blue Can You Get? - Sing Sing 1972
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