Riley B King, better known as BB, who has died aged 89, believed anyone could play the blues, and that “as long as people have problems, the blues can never die”. For generations of blues musicians and rock’n’rollers, King’s plaintive vocals and soaring guitar-playing style set the standard for an art form born in the American South and honoured and performed worldwide.
King played Gibson guitars that he affectionately called Lucille, with a style that included beautifully crafted single-string runs punctuated by loud chords, subtle vibratos and bent notes, building on the standard 12-bar blues and improvising like a jazz master.
The result could hypnotise an audience, no more so than when King used it to full effect on his signature song, The Thrill Is Gone.
The blues is a lifetime gig and King kept at it even as his health declined, playing more than 100 shows a year well into his eighties. He enjoyed acclaim and commercial success, acting the gentleman on stage and off.
The blues were born of despair, but King worked in many moods, and he encouraged black youngsters in particular to make positive choices.
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King was born on September 16, 1925, on a tenant farm near Indianola in the Mississippi Delta. His parents split up when he was four, and his mother died when he was nine; he lived alone in her primitive cabin, raising cotton to work off debts.
His father eventually found him and took him back to Indianola. A preacher uncle taught him the guitar, but King didn’t play and sing blues in earnest until he was in basic training with the army during the Second World War.
His first break came with gospel — singing lead and playing guitar with the Famous St John’s Gospel Singers in Greenwood, Mississippi.
King made his first European tour in 1968, played in 14 cities with the Rolling Stones in 1969, and appeared in TV shows including Sesame Street and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In 1989 he appeared in Rattle and Hum, a film about U2, and toured with the band.
Music brought him from Mississippi’s dirt roads to black-tie meetings with world leaders. He gave a guitar to Pope John Paul II, and had President Barack Obama singing to his Sweet Home Chicago.
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— Associated Press