Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

‘King of the Blues’ legend B.B. King dies at age 89

B.B. King

Kiichiro Sato / AP

In this June 26, 2010, photo, B.B. King performs during the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago. King died Thursday, May 14, 2015, peacefully in his sleep at his Las Vegas home at age 89, his lawyer said.

Updated Friday, May 15, 2015 | 8:30 a.m.

B.B. King at The Mirage: Day 2

B.B. King performs at B.B. King's Blues Club at The Mirage on Aug. 17, 2010. Launch slideshow »

Blues legend B.B. King was never one to leave a stage too early, still he abided by the old show business axiom to always leave the audience wanting a little more.

Nowhere was that more evident than at the Aug. 21, 1997, Zenith Blues Music Festival at Buffalo Bill’s Desert Arena in Primm.

“B.B. King...was at his magnificent best,” late Las Vegas Sun entertainment columnist and longtime friend Joe Delaney wrote in his Aug. 22, 1997, column. “A packed house greeted King’s entrance with a standing ovation and followed with several more before King and his Blues Band closed the five-hour-plus blues marathon with a generous two-hour-stint.”

King and his trademarked Gibson guitar, which he fondly named “Lucille,” would go on to wow audiences worldwide for 17 more years before failing health forced him to cancel all of his 2015 tour dates.

King’s death Thursday night at age 89 in Las Vegas, just 15 days after announcing on his website that he was living out his final days in the serenity of home hospice care, marked the end of the unlikely story of a one-time farmhand who would bring blues music to the masses and influence a generation of rock musicians.

King’s attorney Brent Bryson announced that King, a 15-time Grammy award-winning performer, died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. Thursday at his home.

During his storied career, King garnered nearly every major honor the music world had to offer, including induction into both the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also was a Kennedy Center honoree.

King sold millions of records worldwide and served as a mentor to a wide range of modern performers, including Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones — all of whom performed with King on his albums. King also performed with his own contemporaries, including Frank Sinatra.

King often said his favorite singer was Sinatra. King credited Sinatra for opening the doors for black performers to perform at Las Vegas venues in the early 1960s when the Las Vegas Strip and downtown hotels were segregated.

King’s hit songs include “The Thrill is Gone,” “Three O’Clock Blues,” “Payin’ The Cost To Be The Boss,” “How Blue Can You Get,” “Everyday I Have The Blues,” and “Why I Sing The Blues.”

Two of his songs reached No. 1 on the Blues Charts — “Three O’Clock Blues” in 1951 and “You Don’t Know Me” in 1952. Four others reached No. 2 — “Please Love Me” in 1953, “You Upset Me Baby” in 1954, “Sweet Sixteen, Part I” in 1960 and “Don’t Answer The Door, Part I” in 1966.

King’s biggest crossover hit was “The Thrill Is Gone” in 1970 that climbed to No. 15 on the pop charts.

King, who long suffered from type II diabetes, had been in declining health in recent years. For a patient to be placed under home hospice care, a doctor must diagnose that he likely has just six months to a year to live.

But given King’s advanced years, it became apparent with his May 1 announcement that he was facing his mortality. On that date, King posted a simple two-sentence message on his website: “I am in home hospice care at my residence in Las Vegas. Thanks to all for your well wishes and prayers.”.

After King’s 1997 Primm concert, he released a traditional blues album, “Deuces Wild,” which quickly sold 500,000 copies and was certified gold. Then, in typical King fashion, he followed that up with tours of Europe and the United States, keeping a hectic pace at an age when many seriously contemplate retirement.

Yet, it was not uncommon for King to spend 250 to 300 days a year on tour, even well into his advanced years.

One of King’s last local performances was at the Veil Pavilion at the Silverton on Nov. 25, 2011.

A year earlier, a barbecue restaurant at the Mirage was named B.B. King’s in honor of the entertainer. The restaurant boasted the look and feel of an old-school Southern supper and music club with a menu that included fried green tomatoes, baby back pork ribs and barbecue chicken breast.

B.B. King, was born Riley B. King on Sept. 16, 1926, in Itta Bena, Miss.

King, who started out as a street-corner guitarist in small Mississippi towns, said he first played before church groups that politely clapped and moved on. King said he soon switched to playing the blues because he found that blues audiences stayed longer and tossed money at entertaining artists.

While still a teenager, King left Mississippi with just $2.50 in his pocket and hitchhiked to Memphis, Tenn., the music mecca of the South.

By the early 1940s, King was a disc jockey at WDIA-AM, a 50-watt, black-managed and black-staffed radio station, where King hosted a show during daylight hours, “King’s Spot,” and played in the clubs along Beale Street after dark.

It was at the small radio station, where management decided that King needed a catchy radio DJ name. They came up with “Blues Boy” King, which eventually was shortened to B.B. King.

By the 1950s and the birth of rock ’n’ roll, King was a headliner in dance clubs throughout the South.

It was while performing in one of those clubs in Arkansas that King inadvertently left his $30 acoustic guitar unattended to join others in watching two men get into a back-alley fight.

King, realizing his mistake, rushed back into the club to retrieve his instrument. Apparently the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. After that, King started calling his guitars Lucille and never again left them unattended.

King once described his method of singing and playing: “When I sing, I play in my mind. The minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.”

In the 1960s, King became an FAA-licensed private pilot after having learned to fly in 1963 in Chicago. He frequently flew his own plane to performances until he gave up flying about age 70. Also in the 1960s, King began playing with more contemporary rock and folk artists. In 1969, the Rolling Stones, who were greatly influenced by black blues performers, chose King to open for them on their 18-concert American tour.

King was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1987.

King received honorary doctorates from several centers of higher learning, including Yale University, Berklee College of Music, Mississippi Valley State University and Brown University. In 1992, he received the National Award of Distinction from the University of Mississippi.

In 1991, B.B. King’s Blues Club opened on Beale Street in Memphis, and in 1994, a second club opened at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles. A third club in New York City’s Times Square opened in June 2000, and two clubs opened at Foxwoods casino in Connecticut in January 2002.

In 1996, the CD-ROM “On The Road With B.B. King: An Interactive Autobiography” was released. That same year, King’s autobiography, “Blues All Around Me,” written with David Ritz for Avon Books, was published.

As part of his philanthropy, King in 2001 signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments to underprivileged children. He sat on LKR’s honorary board of directors.

As his popularity grew and he became one of the world’s most recognizable guitarists, King appeared on popular American TV shows and on commercials, almost always portraying himself.

King’s acting credits included “The Cosby Show,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Sanford and Son.” King also had a cameo in the movie “Spies Like Us” and he voiced in the last episode of “Cow and Chicken.”

King appeared in a touching 2014 Toyota Camry commercial, where he was briefly reunited with a Lucille guitar that, according to the storyline, had been purchased in an abandoned storage locker auction by a young female buyer who immediately realized that she had a treasure and went in search of King to sign it.

King also attempted to educate the public on diabetes care by appearing in several TV commercials in the 2000s for OneTouch Ultra test strips.

King was married twice — first to Martha Lee Denton (1946 to 1952) and then to Sue Carol Hall (1958 to 1966). The demise of both marriages was blamed, in part, on King’s extensive touring schedules.

Ed Koch is a former longtime Sun reporter.

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