B.B. King, whose world-weary voice and soulful guitar riffs defined the genre of Delta blues for generations of Americans, died in his sleep Thursday. He was 89.
King had been in hospice care since October 2014, when he was forced to cancel a nationwide tour due to dehydration and exhaustion, both the result of his diabetes.
Arthur Williams Jr., King’s attorney, announced today that King had begun making arrangements for his funeral to be held in a church in Indianola, Miss., near the tenant farms where he spent his childhood picking cotton. This return would bring full-circle a life and career that illustrates the infinite possibilities and unpredictability of life in this country.
King’s truly is an American story, his music and narrative distinctively native to this country.
Uncomfortable with singing and playing simultaneously, King developed a call-and-response method to his music, a give and take between him and his beloved guitar, Lucille. Eric Clapton had Blackie and Brownie; Keith Richards, Micawber. But before all of them, King had Lucille. She was his muse as well as his tool, the medium and the message, and his companion over the course of his nearly 70-year career. That career would see him playing shows all over the world – often 250 in a single year – playing everywhere from private performances for the Queen of England to UCLA’s Royce Hall.
In an interview with William Ferris in 1999, King explained how the blues became his means to rise above the world of his childhood. King said he spent his days working on the plantation from Monday to Saturday afternoon but spent his free time performing.
“I’d go to town on Saturday afternoons, sit on the street corner, and I’d sing and play,” King said in the interview. “People that would request a gospel song would always be very polite to me. … But people that would ask me to sing a blues song would always tip me and maybe give me a beer. … Now you know why I’m a blues singer.”
While he described his career as the result of happenstance, his status as the King of Blues seemed all but divinely ordained. His talent, poise and passion made him synonymous with the genre he stood at the forefront of. His vast catalog of music and awards, including 50 studio albums and 15 Grammy awards, wove him into American musical culture. It is for those reasons he will never be forgotten.
B.B. King found the secret to immortality on a Mississippi street corner at age 19, and he found it with a guitar.