Bio

Riley B. King aka B. B. King (born September 16, 1925) is an American blues guitarist and songwriter. He is widely considered one of the best (and most respected) blues musicians in the world. One of his trademarks is "Lucille", a custom guitar he began using in the 1950s.

Born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, just outside of Indianola, Mississippi, King spent much of his childhood sharing time living with his mother and his grandmother and working as a sharecropper and hired hand.

King has said he was paid 35 cents for each 100 pounds (45 kg) of cotton he picked before discovering his other talents. At an early age, King developed a love for blues guitarists like T-Bone Walker and Lonnie Johnson and jazz artists like Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. Soon King was cultivating his own musical skills singing Gospel music in church. He initially started busking on the streets of Indianola but soon learned a valuable marketing lesson — the gospel tunes he played were well received by passersby, but tips unfortunately came in the form of praise and pats on the back, not loose change. Once King changed his tune (literally) and began singing about things to which everyone could relate, most notably the dynamics of man-woman relationships, his fortune quickly changed. In just eight hours on the streets of Indianola, for example, he could clear $10 or more. Making music was more lucrative and less time-consuming than picking cotton, and the regimented routine improved King's chops and confidence considerably.

In 1943, King moved to Greenwood, Mississippi, and while there had his first radio broadcast in the now historical Three Deuces Building (222 Howard St), home of the former WGRN radio station. Three years later, King moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he finely honed his guitar technique. Contrary to popular belief, his cousin, country blues guitarist Bukka White did not help King with his guitar technique but with suggestions as to how a blues musician should dress.

In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. In order to heat the hall, a barrel half-filled with kerosene was lit. This was quite common. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the burning barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. This triggered an evacuation. Once outside, King realized that he had left his guitar inside the burning building. He entered the blaze to retrieve his guitar, a Gibson acoustic. Two people died in the fire. The next day, King discovered that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. King named that first guitar Lucille, as well as every one he owned since that near-fatal experience, "to remind me never to do a thing like that again."

Eventually, King began broadcasting his music live on Memphis radio station WDIA, a station that had only recently changed their format to play all-black music which was extremely rare at the time. On the air, King started out using the name "The Pepticon Boy" which later became the "Beale Street Blues Boy". The name was then shortened to just Blues Boy and, eventually, simply "B.B."

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