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Chapter 12: The Birth and Growth of Classic Electric Blues
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connection to the Delta performers and trod the early club circuit in the
southern United States.
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A
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Figure 12-7:
A stringbending
passage in
the style of
Albert King.
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Born Riley B. King in 1925 in Indianola, Mississippi, B.B. King began to gain
success in his early 20s in his adopted town of Memphis, playing clubs and
appearing on radio. His on-air persona was “the Beale Street Blues Boy,” eventually
foreshortened to “B.B.”, and he started recording in earnest in 1949 (only
one year after Muddy Waters — who was ten years older — made his first
recording in Chicago). B.B. soon had his first national R&B hit with “Three
O’clock Blues” in 1951 and was widely recorded in the next decade.
B.B. King has it all: a soulful delivery, chops to burn, a vast vocabulary of
blues licks in a variety of genres, and an inexhaustible reservoir of expressive
techniques. He’s perhaps most often cited for his vibrato, which is effortless
and heart rending.
TEAM LinG