All Hail B.B. King!

From Allman to ZZ Top, Rock Stars and Blues Artists Celebrate His Influence

B.B. King (1960s promo photo)

Whether they realize it or not, virtually every electric guitarist who bends a string, coaxes a shimmering vibrato on the fingerboard, or plays a storytelling solo owes a debt of gratitude to B.B. King. For more than half a century, B.B. King reigned as the world’s most beloved blues guitarist, and his influence has echoed through the repertoires of blues artists,  jazz musicians, and rock royalty. As Buddy Guy perfectly expressed it, “B.B. King bent the strings on a guitar like no one else, and we all owe him something now. Every guitar player is playing something that man created on a guitar.”

On the rock front, one of B.B. King’s foremost disciples, Eric Clapton, avidly listened to his records even before he’d gotten his first electric guitar. “There are so many players I have admired and imitated, from John Lee Hooker to Hubert Sumlin,” Clapton wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography, “but the real king is B.B. King. He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced, and the most humble and genuine man you would ever wish to meet.”

While growing up in Seattle, young Jimi Hendrix also fell under the spell of B.B. King’s recordings. His father, James “Al” Hendrix, fondly recalled buying the family their first stereo record player. “Jimi would put my 45s on that turntable and play along on his guitar,” Al said in the book we wrote together, My Son Jimi. “He’d try to copy what he heard, and he’d make up stuff too. He lived on blues around the house. I had a lot of records by B.B. King and Louis Jordan and most of the downhome guys like Muddy Waters. Jimi was really excited by B.B. King and Chuck Berry.” Jimi’s high school band, the Rocking Kings, played covers of King’s “Every Day I Have the Blues” and “Driving Wheel.” Taking a cue from B.B., who always called his guitars “Lucille,” Jimi named his first electric guitar “Betty Jean.”

After his stint in the U.S. Army, Jimi lived for a while in Nashville, where he tried to perfect King’s approach to the guitar. “I am simply trying to get that B.B. King tone down,” he explained to a friend. Jimi was thrilled when, while still an unknown musician, he was introduced to B.B. King backstage for the first time. During his breakthrough concert at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Jimi performed King’s “Rock Me Baby,” and they later jammed together in New York City. In 1996, B.B. wrote of Jimi in Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King: “Jimi was based in the blues, but he went farther out on a limb. I liked that. I like that he created a style the kids liked. Jimi was one of the main guys that turned the guitar into the main instrument of rock. In one way, Jimi was like the new Elvis. Because of Jimi, millions of kids wanted to play guitar. And when the guitar is the center of musical attention, that’s good for my business.”