The thrill is gone

 

The world lost a hero and an ambassador for togetherness last week when the great B.B. King died from complications of diabetes in his Las Vegas home. He was 89 years old. If you never had the chance to hear him play in a live concert, you missed one of the greatest treats of your life. B.B. King sang the blues because he lived it.

Born, Riley B. King in Itta Bena, Mississippi on a cotton plantation, where he made 35 cents for every 100 pounds of cotton that he picked. When B.B. became a teenager, he learned how to drive a tractor which increased his pay to $ 22.50 per day.

One day the plantation's owner offered to advance B.B. $ 30.00 and he went to town, purchased a guitar and taught himself how to play. The very first song that he learned to play was "My Darling Clementine". He eventually started to play in churches and along side gospel groups and as he put it, "you don't have to be too dumb to understand what the best job was."

B.B. King's signature style was a result of him not being able to make his long, thick fingers play the beer bottlenecks and metal slide guitars that were played by most blues guitarists. But, he discovered that he could emulate those sounds by rocking his fingers of his left hand on the frets similar to the way that a classical violinist creates a vibrato.

He and his Gibson guitar that he affectionately  called "Lucille"  played to crowds all over the world and in 1956, he played 342 shows. When he was asked if he was a workaholic, B.B., with that pretty white toothed smile always gave the same answer.

"I had an addiction to something called "need more", but it also reflected my life long drive to bring respectability to a form of music that was disparaged as "the devil's music" and disrespected by radio station disc jockeys as "the music of the ghetto".

B.B. Continues, "I had to travel and do live shows because I never got the exposure playing my kind of music in the media. Although I have won 15 Grammys, I only had one number one hit and that was "The thrill is gone". "It was my only song that was played on the radio station like other types of music, unless I was playing with somebody else".

But due to B.B. King's extraordinary musicianship, he stayed relevant and was introduced to a new crossover audience by playing with groups, like U2, ZZ Top, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, and Eric Clapton, just to name a few of the great rock bands of our time.

Sidebar: B. B. King's name is derived from his being called "Blues Boy King" when he was a young up and coming musician.

This man was a living and breathing history of the blues, who performed on WDIA in the 1940's, which was the first U.S. radio station to adopt an all-black music format. Of course this musical genius' life will never be taught to our children because they don't teach music history in our schools or relevant history for that matter.

Probably the greatest compliment paid to B.B. King was offered by the country music star Brad Paisley. "B. B. King appealed to everyone who ever saw him play. There's nobody who ever saw B. B. King over the course of his career and thought "I don't get it".

"Certain Black audiences, before they are willing to give you credit, they wait until the media picks up on you. Everybody is so class conscious." This is what B.B. told the LA Times jazz critic Leonard Feather during an interview.

B.B King is listed as one of the kings of the blues, was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, won 15 Grammys, and played with the best all over the world. B.B. King's signature method of playing was called the "B.B. Box" where he played his solos using very few notes in a limited "box"of the fret board.

Not bad for a man who never played his guitar and sang at the same time.

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Mad Man