Blues Boy King: Musician and Comedian
An evening with B. B. King
Riley B. King was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. His interview was very intriguing and comical. He reflected on the development of his career, funny moments, as well as some lifetime highlights.
Around age 8 or 9 King’s mother fell ill and passed soon after. He was then under the care of his grandmother. She ended up passing on after two years of caring for young Riley King. He mentioned that he did not let these untimely losses bog him down too much. From his prospective, he figured that it was tough for everyone grieving. Because of this he did not express strong emotions about his unfortunate circumstance. I’m sure he may have though it would be selfish at the time. In his youth, King played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. King also started musical group called John’s Gospel Singers.
For King, music became a form of therapy. He would pick up the guitar and feel true freedom to express himself. He mentioned some of his biggest influencers like Loni Johnson, Bukka White, Blind Lemon, and my relative T-Bone Walker. A few moths ago I learned that T Bone had a big part in Mr. Kings love for the guitar. T. Bone was a Texas native and notable blues singer and guitarist.
When King left Mississippi, he settled in Memphis Tennessee where he established his professional music career. He first started preforming on a famous street called Beale Street. I actually lived in Tennessee for a year in my early childhood, so I was able to get the modern-day blues experience on this famous street that king once called home. Art Gillam (HistoryMaker) describes Beale Street as being a lively entertainment district. Lots of other artists got a chance to take on Beale Street as well such as HistoryMaker Ruby Wilson, The Queen of Beale Street. She represented as the Queen of Beale Street worldwide. She reflected on meeting several queens or countries as well as attending famous locations as the liaison. These locations include Volcanos in Iceland and The Great Wall in China. Beale street was truly a place where blues talent was neutered.
During his interview, B. B King told some stories that I though were worth sharing in this blog post. The first story is about how his famous guitar Lucille got her name. He was preforming at a club in Arkansas where an incident occurred. A fire broke out due to two men fighting. Everyone evacuated the building immediately but B. B. realized he was missing something very important to him. He put his life on the line and ran back into the house to recover the instrument. HE then proceeded to ask the man why he was fighting. The man informed B. B. that they were fighting over a woman of common interest named Lucille. With this information, King found it appropriate to name the guitar after the woman and the rest in history.
One other interesting story was the story about B. B. King and a friend breaking into church to steal a guitar. King and his friend had a gig in Arkansas but they needed a guitar to perform with. They decided that they would break in, steal the guitar, perform with it, and then return it before morning with five dollars attached to it. To put the cheery on top of this Ludacris mission, they got into a car accident on the way back to returning the guitar. Everything ended up working out in the end.
Blues Boy King (B. B. King) is defiantly someone to celebrate. I really enjoyed his interview! I hope this post was able to help you learn some new things about King!
