Unlike the musicians who influenced him, Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, for example, or his contemporaries Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf whose music bore geographic identities, King’s music was not tethered to the style heard at the Mississippi plantation he was born on or the Beale Street sound in Memphis where he first established his career. King, whose best-known song was “The Thrill is Gone,” developed a commercial style of the blues guitar-playing long on vibrato and short, stinging guitar runs while singing almost exclusively about romance. King Rushed to Las Vegas Hospital: Report With his trusty Gibson guitar Lucille, King developed his audiences in stages, connecting with African-Americans region by region in the 1950s and ’60s, breaking through to the American mainstream in the ’70s and becoming a global ambassador for the blues soon thereafter, becoming the first blues musician to play the Soviet Union.ī.B. In October, King fell ill during a show and after being diagnosed with dehydration and exhaustion, canceled his concert tour and had not returned to touring at the time of his death. PDT Thursday at his home in Las Vegas, his attorney Brent Bryson tells the AP. The Mississippi-born guitarist, who had suffered from Type II diabetes for two decades, died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. King, the last of the Southern-born blues musicians who defined modern electric blues in the 1950s and would influence scores of rock and blues guitarists, has died.

He is a member of the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, and has more than 74 albums to his credit.B.B. He is the recipient of uncountable honors and awards, including an honorary doctorate from Yale University, a Presidential Medal of the Arts, an MTV award for Best Video ('When Love Comes To Town'), and seven Grammy Awards (with sixteen nominations). King hit the road in 1951 and has been on it ever since.

B.' s own long but ultimately triumphant struggle for crossover success, during which he remained unwaveringly true to the music of his heart.Īuthor Biography: B.B. 's story is the story of the blues-the evolution from country acoustic to urban electric the birth and explosion of rock 'n' roll-and B.

In this riveting autobiography, he dramatizes his whirlwind adventures from the Memphis of the forties to the Moscow of the nineties with unflinching candor and sincerity-disclosing his complex relationships with women and chronicling his experience with racism, the Civil Rights movement, and the shifting politics of show business. From the rural poverty of the Mississippi Delta to his celebrated position as the world's leading blues musician, B.

Blues All Around Me by B.B. King