Bb King Biography Essay

Who is B.B. King? He was born Riley B.King and was known as one of the greatest blues guitarist that ever lived. He influenced many other artist such as Jimi Hendrix, U2 and Eric Clapton. His music is the hardest music to fake because it came from the soul.

B.B. King was born September 16, 1925 on a Mississippi Delta cotton plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He began singing as a child in the church choirs and learned the guitar from his uncle. He knew from an early age that he wanted to make a living playing the guitar. When B.B. was a child he was not allowed to sing the blues because it was thought of as “the Devil’s Music.” He bought his first guitar for $30 from a magazine and his first song he learned to play was “My Darling Clementine.” Starting out, he made

After serving a short period in the Army, B.B. made his way back to Memphis. He became a disc jockey at a radio station and was nicknamed the “Beale Street Blues Boy” which was later shortened to B.B. and the name stuck. His first number one hit was called “Three O’Clock Blues.”

The story behind B.B.’s guitar is when he was playing a dance in Arkansas and a fight broke out over a woman named Lucille. He ran out and forgot his guitar and went back in to get it and almost died because the building was on fire. He named the guitar Lucille to remind himself to not do anything that silly.
B.B.’s biggest hit was released in 1969 called “The Thrill is Gone.” This hit got him a Grammy award in 1971. He said if he didn’t sing this song at his concerts, the audience would throw tomatoes at him.

In 1971, B.B. and his lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, started the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Rehabilitation and Recreation (FAIRR), which was dedicated to the improvement of prison conditions. He played many shows for the prisons and including one in 1992 where his daughter Patty was doing time for a drug