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Biography Of Blues Legend B.B. King

    B.B. King was a blues singer and guitarist. His full name is
Riley B. King. He was born September 16, 1925, near Indianola,
Mississippi. An important aspect in King's life was, of course, when
he was first exposed to the blues. 'I guess the earliest sound of the
blues that I can rremember was in the fields while people would be
pickin' cotton or choppin' or somethin,' " he told Living Blues . "
When I sing and play now I can hear those same sounds that I used to
hear then as a kid."

    B.B. King's first musical influence came through religion. He was
a member of the Church of God In Christ. He was forbidden to play
blues at home. He sang in spiritual groups like the Elkhorn Singers
and the Saint John's Gospel Singers. A relative who was a guitarist
and a preacher showed King his first chords on the instrument. As a
teenager he began playing streetcorners for coins, combining gospel
songs with the blues. When he started making more money playing in one
night then he would in a week on the farm, he decided to head to
Memphis. After a few years, King went back to Indianola to work and
repay some debts, eventually returning to Memphis to stay. King's
trademark is the trilling vibrato he developed in an attempt to
duplicate the stinging sound of the steel slide. With the help of the
late Sonny Boy William- son he began singing radio commercials and
became a disc jockey. Later he played in small clubs, and then in
larger venues in the mid-1960's. He has toured extensively through-
out the United States and around the world, appearing in concerts, at
blues festivals, on television, and in films. How did Riley B. King
receive the nickname B.B. King? Well, he was known as " the blues boy
from Beale Street," later shortened to B.B. "Riley B. King is the
world's preeminent blues guitarist. There is hardly a rock, pop, or
blues player anywhere who doesn't owe him something." Frank Sinatra
and Nat Cole are two...