From cotton fields to the greatest Blues guitarist of all time: Who is B. B. King?

"Just as Louis Armstrong was once the first name that came to mind when talking about jazz, B.B. King is the name most associated with the Blues. You do not have to be a Blues enthusiast to listen to King."

The career that started in church and grew into a radio station

B B King, whose real name is Riley B King, was born on September 16, 1925, in Berclair, Mississippi, near the town of Itta Bena, surrounded by cotton fields, as the child of Alfred King and Nora Ella King.

When his mother Nora left his father for another man when he was 4 years old, he was raised by his grandmother Elnora Farr in Kilmichael, another town in Mississippi.

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as "the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century".

As a child, he worked in cotton fields like every black man of his age. In his youth, he sang in the Gospel choir at Elkhorn Baptist Church in Kilmichael. After a while, King was sent to the Pentecostal Church because of his music. This church introduced him to a Silvertone guitar for the first time. This guitar, used by the priest of the church, was a popular guitar preferred by artists at that time because it was cheap and could be easily obtained from Sears Stores and Sears catalogs throughout the country. The priest taught King the first three chords, thus unknowingly giving him the first step in his career. King got his first guitar at age 12, costing $15.

What made King take the second step towards establishing his career was the legendary radio program called "King Biscuit Time", which started broadcasting on November 21, 1941, and played entirely Delta Blues. While the “King Biscuit Time” program was the longest-running radio broadcast in history, broadcast on KFFA 1360 AM in Helena, Arkansas, he did not know how much it influenced B. B. King, who listened to the program whenever he could from the first day it started broadcasting, and its role in his decision to become a Blues guitarist. King had now made his final decision to become first a self-taught Blues guitarist and then a radio artist.

1943 was a difficult and busy year for him. He had to leave the church and work as a tractor driver for a while. He also played guitar and sang at various area churches with the Famous St. John's Gospel Singers choir in Inverness, Mississippi. At the same time, he began doing small programs on Radio Station WGRM 1240 AM in Greenwood, Mississippi.

In 1946, King followed his mother's cousin, Bukka, to Tennessee. After staying with Bukka for 10 months, he returned to Mississippi. After a while, he decided to go to Arkansas and stayed there for about two years. Here he began appearing on Sonny Boy Williamson's KWEM Radio shows. This was where he first began to develop an audience of his own. King was slowly starting to attract attention with his performance. This little break got him some money-making gigs at some clubs in Memphis. After a while, he started making small ten-minute spot programs that were frequently broadcast on Memphis Radio Station WDIA. The radio spots proved popular with listeners, and the program was developed and named “Sepia Swing Club.”

Memphis and Beale Street, famous for its Blues clubs, played a very important role in B.B. King's life. Beale Street in particular gave him many things. It was during this period when he was singing and DJing at WDIA Radio in Memphis, that he earned the nickname "B B King". At first, he started to use the name "The Beale Street Blues Boy", inspired by Beale Street, which was full of Blues clubs and bars in Memphis at that time, then "Blues Boy King" and finally simply "B B King". Another important event that Memphis brought to King was meeting T-Bone Walker. King was greatly influenced by T-Bone Walker, his guitar playing, and his guitar. So much so that; “When I first heard him, I knew I had to have a guitar like his to play like him. "I had to play much better to have such a guitar," he said, thus putting the idea of owning the legendary guitar Lucille in his mind.

Lucille

B B King, who became a part of Beale Street from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, played with artists and groups such as Bobby Bland, Johnny Ace, and Earl Forest, known as Beale Street musicians at that time. These performances introduced him to Ike Turner. Meeting Ike Turner was another important event that he experienced in Memphis because Ike Turner was a close friend of Joe Bihari, who was known as a talent scout at Modern Records, Memphis' important record company. Turner introduced him to B King and got him a deal to record a record. The record would be released by RPM Records, a subsidiary of Modern Records in Los Angeles. With this event, a new era began in his career.

"3 O'Clock Blues" was released as a 45 and quickly became number 1 in the "Rhythm and Blues" category of Billboard magazine. This success brought B B King to a considerable position in the RB and Blues music market. His income increased slightly and his name became heard more often. For him, this meant a new guitar that he had dreamed of. King, who used a Fender Esquire in his RPM recordings, finally got his new guitar. It was a Gibson, and this guitar would become King's most precious treasure. He would tell his story in an interview he gave much later: One day, he went out to get fresh air during a short break in his program at a club where he was playing, and meanwhile a fight broke out in the club and the fight caused a fire in the club. While everyone is trying to save their lives and get out, King ignores the flames and risks his life to save his guitar. He enters the burning bar and saves his guitar, which is his most precious treasure. The next day, he learns that the fire in the bar was caused by a fight and that the fight was about a girl named "Lucille", and he names his guitar after the girl who caused this incident.

Thus, for the first time, an artist immortalized his guitar, which was very precious to him.

The first studio album "Singin' The Blues"

King's first album is important as it caused a significant leap forward in his career. The artist did not release any studio albums until his album "Singin' The Blues" in 1957. This first album was a compilation album consisting of the songs he made under the RPM Records label between 1951 and 1956.

A career spanning 80 years

B B King achieved many "firsts" throughout his life and was remembered as one of the most important figures of Blues music from the 1950s to the present day. The artist, who has released nearly 50 studio and concert albums, was deemed worthy of two Multi-Platinum Record Awards with his hit album "Riding With The King", which he made with Eric Clapton in 2000. King, the biggest legend of the Blues world with many songs that are at the top of music charts such as “Please Love Me”, “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer”, “Whole Lotta Love”, “You Upset Me Baby”, died on March 29, 2006. He announced that he would end his active musical career with a farewell tour starting from Hallam Arena at the age of 80. Apart from this tour, King only performed in private concerts organized for charity.

B B King has always been an artist whose life was full of firsts. The artist, who received many honorary doctorates from many famous universities throughout his life, also received many awards throughout his active career of more than 60 years. He was inducted into the "Blues Hall Of Fame" honor list in 1980, and the "Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame" honor list in 1987 (he became the first artist accepted into the Rock Roll Hall of Fame, established in 1987) and in 2014. He entered the "National Rhythm Blues Hall of Fame" honor list. In 2004, he was awarded the “International Polar Music Awards”, which are given to artists "in recognition of outstanding achievements in the creation and development of music".

Ranked 3rd in Rolling Stone magazine's "10 Best Guitarists in History" list in 2009, King won a Grammy award 15 times throughout his career, including in the "Best Blues Album" category.

B B King performed in more than 15,000 concerts throughout his life. One day after the funeral of his son, who died of cancer in 2006, he went on stage in New York and gave his ten thousandth concert.

The musician, who was married twice in 1946 and 1958, could not maintain both marriages due to his active musical life. He married Martha Lee Denton in 1946, divorced in 1952, married Carol Hall in 1958, and divorced in 1966.

As the famous artist stated in his autobiography, his favorite musician was Frank Sinatra and his favorite album was Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours".

As an active member of the association called "Little Kids Rock", which was established for the education of young musicians, B B King constantly supported and helped young musicians.

Funeral service accompanied by "When the Saints Go Marching In"

B B King passed away in Las Vegas on May 14, 2015, at the age of 89, from diabetes, which he had been struggling with for a long time. His funeral was very magnificent. He was sent off to his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, by fans flocking from many places, with a cortege held on Beale Street, starting in front of the club that bears his name and singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" along the street. His funeral was held at Bell Grove Missionary Baptist in Indianola. It was removed from the Church and thus the Blues said goodbye to another master.