BB King, the legendary American blues singer and guitarist, was born in Mississippi in 1925. He learned to play guitar in church and worked in agriculture before pursuing a career in music. He named all his guitars Lucille after a near-death experience in a fire caused by a dispute over a woman named Lucille. He won numerous awards and had 15 children out of wedlock.
The American blues singer and guitarist known as BB King is legendary. Called The King of the Blues, BB King is known for his powerful music and for naming all of his guitars Lucille. His hits include “The Thrill is Gone”, “Why I Sing the Blues” and “Woke Up This Morning”.
BB King was born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925 in the Mississippi Delta area of the United States. His father, Albert, was a sharecropper like his mother, Nora Ella. Riley B. was named after his uncle, but Albert named his son “BB” to mean little brother due to the mere eighteen year age difference between them. When BB was four years old, his mother left her father and started living with another man. She sent BB to live nearby with her grandmother.
Attending church with his grandmother and mother sparked BB’s interest in music and he learned to play guitar from the preacher. The young king liked to sing and play the guitar in church. As a teenager, BB lived with his father for a few years after his mother and grandmother died. Then he worked mostly in agriculture-related jobs, finding work where he could. He lived with a white family, the Flake-Cartledges, for a while and they helped BB buy him his first guitar.
BB formed a singing group with his cousin, Birkett, called The Famous Saint John’s Gospel Singers. When the rest of the group were reluctant to pursue a career in music, BB King began singing and playing blues music as a soloist. He became a huge success on his concert tours and recordings. BB King was married twice and had no children from either marriage, but fathered 15 children with different women out of wedlock. BB King has won numerous awards, including seven Grammys, the Kennedy Center and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The reason King named all of his guitars, Lucille, dates back to the 1940s, when he played concerts in ballrooms. Halls were often heated with kerosene, and one night, in a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas, two men got into an argument over a lit keg of kerosene. The result was a terrible fire that killed two people. BB took a risk going back to save his guitar and when he found out the men had been fighting over a woman named Lucille, he chose to name his guitars that to remind him never to risk his life like that again.
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