Expect some musical heavyweights to turn up today in Las Vegas at the funeral service for B.B. King, whose influence spread far beyond the blues he came to personify and well into rock, R&B and jazz.
To hear many of the world’s greatest musicians talk about the man born Riley B. King, who died May 14 at age 89 at his home in Las Vegas, the only quality that transcended his prodigious guitar skills and emotive voice was his generous human spirit.
“He was the face of the blues,” said Vince Gill, Grammy Award-winning guitarist, singer and songwriter. “He was probably the most influential blues man, maybe ever. He had such a gentlemanly quality about him, and that always struck me as really, really important. This man, as famous as he was, for all the accolades, what struck me was the gentlemanliness he had, the kindness.”
In a video selfie posted early May 15, Eric Clapton said, “He was a beacon for all of us who loved this kind of music, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart. … There’s not a lot left to say, because his music is almost a thing of the past now, and there are not many left that play it in the pure way that B.B. did.”
Clarion notes
Indeed, few musicians in any genre have ever created a sound and an approach to their instrument as instantly identifiable as the one honed over more than seven decades by King. He coaxed clarion notes from the electric guitar he called Lucille.
“The tone he got out of that guitar, the way he shook his left wrist, the way he squeezed the strings … man, he came out with that, and it was all new to the whole guitar-playin’ world,” Buddy Guy — King’s fellow blues guitarist, singer and longtime friend — said in a statement. “The way B.B. did it is the way we all do it now.”
Having grown up during the Depression, King often recalled picking 500 pounds of cotton per day for a wage of 35 cents per 100 pounds picked. He witnessed first-hand the racism of the Deep South, the experience of which was part of what motivated him to move north to pursue music, after discovering on Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn., that he could make more money in one night playing guitar and singing than he earned picking cotton for a week.
But he typically spoke softly about his choice not to focus on injustice in his own life.
“The bad times I had in my early years,” he told The Times in 2005, his voice trailing off. “People have been so good to me the last 40 or 50 years that I forgot ’em. I really forgot ’em. For me to think about them, somebody’s gotta talk about it — the segregated era and the many things that happened. I finally learned that drinking out of a white fountain — the water tastes just as good out of the black one.”
Bit of a contradiction
That was a reflection of the kindheartedness so many of his peers remember of him.
“He was a little bit of a contradiction,” said country singer Brad Paisley, who recorded a duet with King for his 2008 largely instrumental album “Play.” “As much as he was known for playing the blues, this is one of the happiest people I’ve ever met.”
One of his guitar-playing hallmarks was musical economy — he often appeared to be on a quest for that one right note, rather than on a mission to spew out as many as humanly possible.
“He could do more with a short-stated phrase than most could do with the calendar and the alphabet combined,” said ZZ Top guitarist Billy F. Gibbons. “Myself, all the British guys, the Mike Bloomfields, count ’em — we’re all lucky to be interpreters. B.B. was an originator.”
Likewise, he was revered among other musicians as a singer, although much of the public’s attention was focused on his singular guitar-playing style. He was a master at channeling the deep pain of loss, of course, but equally convincing when he was playful, coy, seductive, perplexed or celebratory.
“Oftentimes, people overlook that he’s such an amazing singer,” said singer, guitarist and songwriter Bonnie Raitt. “It’s because of his eloquence and his soul as a singer, the way he interprets a lyric. The way he plays his voice is as intrinsic to who he is as an artist as who he is in his (guitar) playing. Whether it’s heartache or anger or joy, it’s that passion that he builds and builds, then pulls back and waits, and then it erupts.
“As with all the greatest artists, he doesn’t think about it — it just pours out of him.”
Whatever came forth from King, it connected with a broad swath of listeners and peers, taking his music far beyond the confines of the world of blues aficionados.
As Paisley put it: “He really appealed to everyone who ever saw him play. There’s nobody who ever saw B.B. King over the course of his career and thought, ‘I don’t get it.'”
