B.B. King couldn't play a chord. Not one. He was strictly a one note at a time player.
But what he did with those notes was legendary, mythical.
No other bluesman since Robert Johnson had the impact on so many forms of popular music that B.B. King and his great love Lucille did.
and the other was the just released B.B. King Guess Who
I've been hooked ever since.
The Beatles were the band that made me pick up a guitar in the first place, but it was B.B. King that introduced me to the Blues and started me on my lifelong musical passion
I've been to well over 100 concerts (that's when I stopped counting) in my 53 years (the ever present tinnitus is delicious) but by far and without a doubt the best was at Reading's River Days Fest in the late 80s or early 90s.
B.B. King was playing. My mom, working where she did at the time, was able to score my friend and I 3rd row seats.
The concert was held in a huge white tent, so we were very close to the band and the speakers.
Close enough that when his horn player James "Boogaloo" Bolden began tossing his head side to side we were sprayed with sweat.
It was hot already that summer but in that tent it was broiling.
And B.B. King never let it cool.
The music and ambiance that summer night, the call and response with the audience, his preaching of the blues, made that concert feel like an old time tent revival meeting.
When B.B. King played, no matter how deep the Blues and sorrow he was singing about, he just couldn't hide the sheer joy in his playing.
But now Lucille is quiet and lonely and no one will ever make love to her that way again.
1 comment:
Thanks, MR.
Post a Comment