bb king albums download B.B. King. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. B.B. King , byname of Riley B. King , (born September 16, 1925, near Itta Bena, Mississippi, U.S.—died May 14, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada), American guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the development of blues and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration. What is B.B. King known for? American guitarist and singer B.B. King was a principal figure in the development of blues. Leading popular musicians drew inspiration from his style, and by the late 1960s rock guitarists were acknowledging his influence and priority; they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader white public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions. What is B.B. King's real name? B.B. King's real name is Riley B. King. What does the B.B. in B.B. King's name stand for? The B.B. in B.B. King's name stands for "Blues Boy." King acquired the name while working as a disc jockey in Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States. What was B.B. King's first number-one hit? B.B. King's first hit song was "Three O’Clock Blues" in 1951. What song is B.B. King famous for? "The Thrill Is Gone," recorded in 1969, was a major hit for B.B. King. The song earned King his first of the 15 Grammy Awards he received. King was reared in the Mississippi Delta, and gospel music in church was the earliest influence on his singing. To his own impassioned vocal calls, King played lyrical single-string guitar responses with a distinctive vibrato; his guitar style was influenced by T-Bone Walker, by Delta blues players (including his cousin Bukka White), and by such jazz guitarists as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. He worked for a time as a disc jockey in Memphis, Tennessee (notably at station WDIA), where he acquired the name “B.B.” (for “Blues Boy”) King. In 1951 King made a hit record of “Three O’Clock Blues,” and he thereafter began what became a lifetime of nearly continuous touring throughout the country and later the world. He often played 300 or more one-night stands a year with his 13-piece band. A long succession of hits—including “Woke Up This Morning” (1953), “Every Day I Have the Blues,” and “Sweet Sixteen”—enhanced his popularity. In 1964 in Chicago he recorded the seminal album Live at the Regal , and his 1969 recording “ The Thrill Is Gone” won him the first of 15 Grammy Awards. By the late 1960s rock guitarists were acknowledging his influence and priority; they introduced King and his guitar, Lucille, to a broader white public, who until then had heard blues chiefly in derivative versions. King’s relentless touring strengthened his claim to the title of undisputed king of the blues, and he was a regular fixture on the Billboard charts through the mid-1980s. His strongest studio albums of this era were those that most closely tried to emulate the live experience, and the critically acclaimed Live in Cook County Jail (1971) was particularly noteworthy. He also found commercial success through a series of all-star collaborations. On Deuces Wild (1997), King enlisted such artists as Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, and Eric Clapton to create a fusion of blues, pop, and country that dominated the blues charts for almost two years. Clapton and King collaborated on the more straightforward blues album Riding with the King (2000), which featured a collection of standards from King’s catalog. He recaptured the pop magic of Deuces Wild with 80 (2005), a celebration of his 80th birthday that featured Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, and a standout performance by Elton John. King returned to his roots with One Kind Favor (2008), a collection of songs from the 1940s and ’50s including blues classics by the likes of John Lee Hooker and Lonnie Johnson. Joining King in the simple four-part arrangements on the T-Bone Burnett-produced album were stalwart New Orleans pianist Dr. John, ace session drummer Jim Keltner, and stand-up bassist Nathan East. The album earned King his final Grammy, for best traditional blues album. In 2008 the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opened in Indianola, Mississippi, with exhibits dedicated to King’s music, his influences, and the history of the Delta region. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me , written with David Ritz, was published in 1996. King was the recipient of numerous awards and honours. He was a member of the inaugural class of inductees to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1987 he earned a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. King also received the National Medal of Arts (1990) and was a Kennedy Center honoree (1995). The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn, Managing Editor, Reference Content. Timeline. Blues musician B.B. King released over 50 albums in his lifetime. With 15 Grammy Awards, the legendary guitarist holds the record for the most won in the Blues genre. September 16, 1925 B.B. King was born Rileigh King in a cabin on the bank of Bear Creek in the tiny town of Berclair, MS, in the central Mississippi Delta; his birth did not go on record. His parents Albert King and Nora Ella King lived on the plantation of Jim O’Reilly. King was named in honor his father’s brother Riley, who vanished when Albert was a boy. 1931-33 Parents separate and King’s mother moves with Riley to hilly part of Mississippi east of the Delta to be with her extended family. For next 12 years Riley lives alternately with his mother and her new spouse, Elger Baskin, known as “Picaninee,” his grandmother, Elnora Farr, and his aunts and uncles from the Pullian clan in Kilmichael, Montgomery County. 1935 King’s mother Nora Ella dies, blind and wasted, at age 31, most likely of complications from diabetes. She had instilled in King his faith and belief in the goodness of people. 1936-1940 King lives with his grandmother and Pullian family. Church, school and hard work dominate his life. His church is Church of God In Christ (a.k.a. “Sanctified Church”), led by Reverend Archie Fair, who plays guitar in the services. Archie’s wife and King’s aunt are sisters, and when they visit, Riley is allowed to play the Reverend’s guitar. It is love at first touch. King attends Elkhorn School, maintained by the Elkhorn Church, Primitive Baptist. Teacher Luther Henson teaches Riley to read and to be self- reliant, fair-minded, and devoted to self-improvement. Henson’s influence is life-long. The school year is bounded by the growing season and all children work in the fields. When the ground is ready for cultivation, school lets out, when the crop is harvested, school reopens. Life is hard and primitive by contemporary standards: no electricity, no indoor plumbing. 1940 After his grandmother Elnora Farr dies on January 10, Riley King must begin living the life of an adult at age 14. He and his grandmother had been sharecroppers on Edwayne Henderson’s farm, whose record show she died owing Henderson $21.75 (over five months’ living allowance). Henderson offers Riley to stay in his grandmother’s cabin and raise cotton on one acre for a monthly allowance of $2.50. Henderson farm record lists grim facts: interest charges of 8% applied quarterly; charge of 40¢ for “3 yards cotton sack; charge of 50¢ for ‘wrench;’ credit $1.00 ‘by work.’” At settlement time Riley’s return on his crop is $4.18; he owes Henderson $7.54, nearly four months’ “furnish.” Fall, 1940 Albert King arrives and takes his son to live in Lexington, Mississippi (pop. 3,000 approx.), county seat of Holmes County. Riley meets his half-siblings and stepmother, enrolls in a coloured school. Late 1941 Cruelty as commonplace, the humiliations of segregation, and a feeling that he is a stranger in his father’s home, compel 16-year-old Riley to get on his bicycle and ride two days (approximately 45 miles) back to Kilmichael to be reunited with his cousins and familiar surroundings. 1942 Finding his kin gone, Riley takes residence with the family of a white farmer Flake Cartledge, who live in a shack on Cartledge farm. He continues his schooling. 1943 King moves back to Indianola in the Delta, joins cousin Birkett Davis. He works as a tractor driver on Johnson Barrett’s plantation. 1944-45 Marries Martha Lee Denton (marriage ends in divorce in 1952). The young couple live with King’s cousin Birkett and wife Delicia, sharing a cabin and raising cotton on adjacent tracts. King, Birkett and three others form St. John’s Gospel Singers. King is inducted into the U.S. Army, but discharged after basic training when classified as essential to war economy, based on his skills as a tractor driver. 1947 Flees to Memphis after damaging his tractor, leaving Martha alone and a crop in the ground. King’s whereabouts are a closely held secret to prevent landowner Barrett from sending the law after Riley. King stays in Memphis with his cousin, blues singer Bukka White. 1948 Returns to Indianola to work off the debt for tractor damage, but resolves to return to Memphis. Late 1948 King moves to West Memphis, AR, across the Mississippi River from Memphis and goes straight to radio KWEM and plays a song live on Sonny Boy Williamson’s daily program. This leads to gigs at the Sixteenth Street Grill in West Memphis. At the black-staffed and managed radio station WDIA in Memphis, TN, King lands a daily 15-minute spot as “The Peptikon Boy,” selling the alcohol-laced health tonic Peptikon. 1949-1950 Regional stardom on radio and in area joints around Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi brings King to the attention of a small record label; he cuts four sides for Bullett Records. Radio spot expands, Peptikon Boy becomes “Blues Boy,” then plain “B.B.” King. Survives a near fatal bout of hepatitis. He rushes back into a fiery, burning dance hall to save his guitar, thereafter named “Lucille” as a reminder to avoid foolish risks. 1952 On February 2, B.B. signs with Universal Attractions booking agency, goes on tour with stops at Washington, D.C.’s Howard Theatre, Baltimore’s Royal Theatre, Chicago’s Regal Theatre and Harlem’s Apollo Theater. B.B. rises to the challenge of a new kind of audience and wins wide acceptance and affection across the national network of big city theaters, southern juke joints and road houses called the Chitlin’ Circuit. He and Martha King divorce. They have no children from the marriage. 1953 B.B. King leaves the roster of DJ’s at WDIA in Memphis. Touring has too big a claim on his time. Cover of B.B. King’s 1956 album “Singin’ the Blues.” 1955 Forms first big “B.B. King Band,” buys first bus, “Big Red.” Touring compliment of 16 people includes Walker brothers (bus driver Cato, and bassist “Shinny”), Evelyn “Mama Nuts” Young, drummer Earl Forest (songwriter of “Next Time You See Me”). 1956 King and his band reportedly play 340 one-night engagements. 1958 Marries Sue Hall, daughter of proprietress of Club Ebony, in Indianola, Mississippi. Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s father, presides over the ceremony in Detroit, MI. Sue takes up life on the road with her famous husband. In time, they buy a home in Los Angeles. B.B. is rarely there (marriage ends in divorce in 1966). “Big Red,” B.B.’s touring bus, collides with a butane truck on a bridge in Texas. Truck driver and passenger die in the fiery wreck. All on the bus are safe. Terrible timing: the company insuring the bus was suspended a day or two before the accident, leaving B.B. personally liable, though he was not present. The settlement puts B.B. in debt for years. 1963 Records “How Blue Can You Get?” written by jazz critic Leonard Feather. The song becomes one of B.B.’s most recognizable signature songs, with its punch line lyric “I gave you seven children/And now you wanna give ‘em back.” 1964 Records Live At The Regal , the album that eventually secures his stature as King of The Blues for decades to come. 1966 Bad things come in threes: The IRS slaps a $78,000 lien on B.B.’s income for back taxes owed, Sue King files for divorce, and his bus is stolen. ABC-Paramount begins issuing B.B. King recordings on BluesWay, the new label devoted to blues artists. Records live album in Chicago club Blues Is King , long to be hailed as among his finest works. B.B. is still virtually unknown to white audiences. 1968 Following a dispute over money with business manager Lou Zito, B.B. fires Zito and hires Zito’s accountant, Sidney Seidenberg, as his new manager. Seidenberg signs B.B. with Associated Booking, the powerhouse agency run by show business legend Joe Glaser. Glaser manages the likes of Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino. On June 8, B.B. plays the Filmore Auditorium in San Francisco, the rock palace owned by impresario Bill Graham. B.B. is introduced as the “King of the Blues” and is given his first standing ovation as he walks on stage. Coming from his first predominantly white audience, it is clear that B.B. King has arrived in mainstream pop culture. On July 27, B.B. plays the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI. 1969 BluesWay records two B.B. King albums, Live and Well , and Completely Well , both produced by Bill Szymczyk. The second includes a track recorded with strings, an adaptation of Roy Hawkins, “The Thrill Is Gone.” It reaches #3 on the R&B charts and #15 on the Pop charts. Its success on the Pop charts seals B.B.’s reputation as a general audience entertainer and the tune becomes his best known song. 1970 “The Thrill Is Gone,” earns B.B. his first Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. B.B.’s exposure and recognition expand rapidly. B.B. King opens 18 American concerts for the Rolling Stones. B.B. plays before dozens of audiences that only a short time before were completely inaccessible to him. 1971 King begins his first overseas tour. Releases B.B. in London album, which includes Ringo Starr. B.B. seals his new won fame with an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show . Twenty million Americans see B.B. King perform “Thrill Is Gone.” 1984 King is inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. 1987 King is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and receives a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. 1988 For the Rattle and Hum album, the Irish rock group U2 records “When Love Comes to Town” with B.B. King in Memphis. He opens for the band on a four-month world tour. 1990 King is awarded the National Medal of Arts. 1995 King receives the Kennedy Center Honors. Cover of the Grammy Award-winning “Riding with the King” album (2000). 1996 B.B. King’s autobiography, Blues All Around Me (written with David Ritz for Avon Books), is published. 2000 Records Riding With The King with Eric Clapton. Album goes double-platinum (2,000,000 in certified sales), and wins the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. B.B. King has his first blockbuster hit record. February 15, 2005 Mississippi Senate and House of Representatives honor B.B. King with a joint resolution saluting him as a favorite son. B.B. appears at a joint session of House and Senate as the proclamation is read out, Governor Haley Barbour presiding. February 15 is declared B.B. King day in the state. June 10, 2005 Ground breaking for the B.B. King Museum to be built in Indianola, MS. Former governors, leaders of Mississippi House and Senate, and town officials salute him, then, together they break ground. B.B. King receives the the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush. December 15, 2006 President George W. Bush presents King with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. September 2008 The B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center opens in Indianola, MS. B.B. King Wails. King's third album didn't have any hits or well-known standards of his repertoire, though one of the tracks, "The Woman I Love," became a small hit after getting overdubbed years later. The influence of big-band jazz is actually fairly prominent here, with saxes and trumpet playing a big part in the arrangements. Jump blues like "I've Got Papers on You, Baby" and ballads like "The Fool" veer almost as close to jazz as blues with their brassiness, though cuts like "Sweet Thing," "We Can't Make It," and "The Woman I Love" put the slow-burning, guitar-oriented blues for which King is most known closer to the core. Elsewhere King puts shades of gospel ("Come by Here") and doo wop ("I Love You So") into his brand of polished urban blues. Five albums to discover BB King. With seven decades of music behind him and a storied legacy, BB King is known as the King of the blues. Choosing only five of his most emblematic works has been a challenge for our Doctor Soul, Luis Lapuente. Selection and text: LUIS LAPUENTE. 1.Live at The Regal (ABC, 1964) In the early 1960s, ABC officials enlisted arranger Johnny Pate, a jazz-trained bassist and producer, who made history in the 1960s with his work for Wes Montgomery and The Impressions at the service of BB King. However, King’s productions did not change in substance, as the guitarist was used to adorning his songs with winds and stylistic ornaments borrowed from jazz. Pate did realize immediately, however, that it was urgent to present King to his audience in his natural environment, that of the concert before a black audience, and produced what many consider to be still the best live show in blues history, the legendary Live at The Regal (1964), recorded in a famous South Chicago theater integrated into the chitlin ‘circuit . “We knew that the first song was always“ Every day I have the blues ”, it was our signature and then we were already improvising according to BB’s tastes,” one of the members of King’s orchestra recalled in a recent documentary. And so it was: that recording was an incandescent milestone, an epiphany for dozens of young white guitarists throughout history, guys like Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Alexis Korner, Elvin Bishop, Carlos Santana or Joe Bonamassa who found the secret there from the philosopher’s stone of the blues. 2. Blues on top of the b read (ABC, 1968) In the last years of the Prodigious Decade, those responsible for the ABC label created the subsidiary Bluesway expressly for BB King, and focused their recordings on a wide spectrum of fans, greater than the usual consumer of classic blues, taking advantage of its pull among fans of the soul and rock. They were his golden years, the most fertile and of enormous commercial impact, with extraordinary albums such as Blues on top of the blues Y Lucille (1968), Live & well Y Completely well (1969), Indianola Mississippi seeds (1970) and Live in Cook County Jail (1971). The first of them is probably worth highlighting above all of them, very close to the soul blues of the great Bobby Bland, who would later sign two splendid live shows with King. Highlights include the catchy horn arrangements by Johnny Pate and a major repertoire classic by BB King, “Paying the costs to be the Boss.” To taste in command with the one immediately after Completely well , where the original version of the historical “The thrill is gone” appeared. 3. B.B. King in London (ABC, 1971) In 1971, BB King went to London to perform and took the opportunity to record this wonderful album at Abbey Road Studios, a rarity unfairly undervalued and forgotten by purists, where he felt at ease supported by illustrious white disciples and admirers such as Mac Rebennac, Steve Marriot, Klaus Voorman, Peter Green, Jim Gordon, Rick Wright, Jim Keltner, Gary Wright, Ringo Starr or the great Alexis Korner, with whom he performed a beautiful instrumental duet (“Alexis boogie”), playing acoustic guitar for the first time since his younger years. In addition, here you can enjoy one of the best versions of the classic “Caledonia” that he has ever recorded, as well as tremendous soul downloads signed by Clay Hammond (“Part-time love”) and Jerry Ragovoy (“Ain’t nobody home”). . Soon after, King would record one of his best live shows ( Live in Cook County Jail , 1971) and, already at the Sigma Sound studios in Philadelphia, the album To know you is to love you (1973) on a more soulful vibe, with sound engineer Joe Tarsia and soul and funk musicians such as Dave Crawford, Earl Young, Ronnie Baker, Norman Harris, Vincent Montana Jr., Andrew Love, Wayne Jackson and Stevie Wonder himself , one of whose songs gave the title to the LP. 4. One kind favor (Geffen, 2008) The old blues always return and the great patriarch of the genre, the one who had kept its essences from a very young age, decided to say goodbye to his faithful with this marvelous album, the last of his career, produced by the great T-Bone Burnett and supported by friends. like Jim Keltner and Dr. John. BB King left his comfort zone on this gritty and dark record like a gloomy daguerreotype of Deep America and was finally able to close the circle he opened many years ago in the cotton fields of Mississippi, paying homage to his heroes of youth Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson in soulful southern blues like “Tomorrow night” or in harrowing and foreboding pieces like “See that my grave is kept clean.” Six years later he appeared in public for the last time, at the House of Blues in Chicago. As we collected in number 20 of Cuadernos Efe Eme, in the very complete article “The life and work of the blues giant: BB King”, that night his band warmed up the atmosphere and when he came out on stage he sat down and suddenly stayed with staring blankly, he caught Lucille, unhooked her, and placed her ropes down on a stool, not sure what to do. He had forgotten everything. It was his old friend and conductor of his orchestra, James Boogaloo Bolden, who realized what was happening: he helped him put Lucille in her box, took her arm, they both greeted the audience, and took him backstage. There, King told him: « Boogaloo You’ve been with me for many years, you know me well and you’ve never heard me say this: ‘I’m finished, it’s the end’ ». 5. King of the blues (MCA, 1992) In 1992, the company MCA, heir to ABC, published a succulent anthology of four CDs entitled King of the blues , a box full of classics from all its stages and some rarities, essential to understand in a formidable panoramic the immortal legacy of the legendary guitarist, from his last and numerous collaborations with artists of other genres to his first memorable version of the Lowell Fulson classic “Three o’clok blues” and other canonical songs from their early years on the Bihari brothers’ label, many of them signed in partnership with them, a common practice then in blues and rythm and blues, later revealed by the King himself: “If you look at the credits of my first songs, like” Sweet little angel “,” Three o’clock blues “and” Ten long years “, you will see my last name next to names like Joe Josea, Jules Taub or Sam Ling. There were no such types, they were pseudonyms of the Bihari that allowed them to claim half of the copyright for themselves. A chest that perfectly explains why BB King was always a prince of elegance and conciseness: many musicians call BB Box to a specific section of the neck of the guitar, as a tribute to that glorious way of playing of the King of blues. Generally, the BB Box It ranks from the 10th to the 12th fret, depending on the key of the song, because that’s where King played most of the guitar chords. Bonus track: The thrill is gone , with Sid Seidenberg and Bill Szymczyk. The relationship between King and Seidenberg, unchanging over dozens of years, is unusual in a business as complicated and volatile as popular music. “We are the same age,” BB said in his autobiography, “and we also have some of the same health problems with our knees and legs. When we first met in 1967, he told me that he would give me a dollar if I asked him for it and that he would expect me to pay it back if I borrowed it. He is a transparent and honest guy, we are made of the same pasta and maybe that is why we are such good friends. He is my best friend and there is no better manager for an artist than his best friend. It was Seidenberg who prompted him to record the classic “The Thrill is Gone” in 1970, a vintage blues by Roy Hawkins completely revamped by the production of Bill Szymczyk and the arrangements by Bert de Coteaux, which succeeded in bringing a lush layer to the fore. of violins, adding emotional intensity to King’s guitar phrasing and the story itself. This formidable secret is revealed in all its splendor when the notes of, for example, “Three o’clock blues” or “The thrill is gone” are sounded: the incredible economy of means, the accuracy of the chords, nothing is left over or over. , it almost seems that the fingers lazily fly over the strings of his guitar, no matter how intimate or frenzied his blues seem, they always appear with the same elegance, the same lack of imposture, the same natural subtlety, the same conciseness, as if In these songs it is not important to display sadness or hopelessness, as if above the deafening shouting of other artists who strive to make their anger and helplessness clear, there prevails an intangible feeling of moral integrity and spiritual delicacy, a frugal sense of classicism, a special ecumenical beat that transcends blues and all black music, sublimating them in a universal creation. All Blues, BB King. Get notified on all the latest Music, Movies and TV Shows. 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