'King of the Blues' Blues Legend B.B. King Dead at Age 89

[AnoNimos 12 455]

.B. King, whose scorching guitar licks and heartfelt vocals made him the idol of generations of musicians and fans while earning him the nickname King of the Blues, died late Thursday at home in Las Vegas. He was 89.

 

His attorney, Brent Bryson, told The Associated Press that King died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT. He said funeral arrangements were underway.

 

Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg confirmed the death.

 

King's eldest surviving daughter Shirley King of the Chicago area said she was upset that she didn't have a chance to see her father before he died.

 

Although he had continued to perform well into his 80s, the 15-time Grammy winner suffered from diabetes and had been in declining health during the past year. He collapsed during a concert in Chicago last October, later blaming dehydration and exhaustion. He had been in hospice care at his Las Vegas home.

 

For most of a career spanning nearly 70 years, Riley B. King was not only the undisputed king of the blues but a mentor to scores of guitarists, who included Eric Clapton, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall and Keith Richards. He recorded more than 50 albums and toured the world well into his 80s, often performing 250 or more concerts a year.

 

King played a Gibson guitar he affectionately called Lucille with a style that included beautifully crafted single-string runs punctuated by loud chords, subtle vibratos and bent notes.

 

The result could bring chills to an audience, no more so than when King used it to full effect on his signature song, "The Thrill is Gone." He would make his guitar shout and cry in anguish as he told the tale of forsaken love, then end with a guttural shouting of the final lines: "Now that it's all over, all I can do is wish you well."

 

His style was unusual. King didn't like to sing and play at the same time, so he developed a call-and-response between him and Lucille.

 

"Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said, to make the audience understand what I'm trying to do more," King told The Associated Press in 2006. "When I'm singing, I don't want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling."

 

A preacher uncle taught him to play, and he honed his technique in abject poverty in the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues.

 

"I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did," he said in the 1988 book "Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music."

 

"People all over the world have problems," he said. "And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die."

 

Fellow travelers who took King up on that theory included Clapton, the British-born blues-rocker who collaborated with him on "Riding With the King," a best-seller that won a Grammy in 2000 for best traditional blues album.

 

Singer Smokey Robinson praised the music legend.

 

"The world has physically lost not only one of the greatest musical people ever but one of the greatest people ever. Enjoy your eternity," Robinson said.

 

Still, the Delta's influence was undeniable. King began picking cotton on tenant farms around Indianola, Mississippi, before he was a teenager, being paid as little as 35 cents for every 100 pounds, and was still working off sharecropping debts after he got out of the Army during World War Two.

[peggy 236]

Un géant ! Qu'il repose en paix.

[SMiitchy 10]

Qu'il repose en paix, grandiose.