A Centennial Salute to B.B. King

All hail the King of the Blues, who would've turned 100 this year

I was thinking about Riley B. King the other day, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, and realizing what a profound effect he’s had on me and so many guitarists that I’ve interviewed over the years, from John Scofield, Mike Stern and Robben Ford to Eric Gale, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Derek Trucks, and tons more. Anyone who ever bent a string and squeezed all the juice out of the note, as Carlos Santana once put it to me, owes a huge debt to the King of the Blues.

I saw B.B. in concert dozens of times, each one a stunning event to me. His signature expressive vibrato and note-bending technique never failed to trigger an involuntary grimace on my face (or maybe I was just mirroring the guitar grimace that B.B. himself flashed while hitting those sweet, sweet notes). His signature blues shout on “Don’t Answer the Door” always felt like a big sonic hug to me while his falsetto sweep on the suggestive “Sweet Little Angel” (the slow-grinding, far sexier version from 1969’s Live & Well recorded at the Village Gate in New York, not the less dramatic/climactic version from 1965’s Live at the Regal recorded in Chicago) always felt slightly naughty to me. Imagine the sheer prurient joy of my 15-year-old self taking in these borderlin smutty lyrics, sung by a sly B.B. in deep dialogue with smokey tenor saxophonist Lee Gatling:

I’ve got a sweet little angel, people/I love the way she spread her wings/Yes, I’ve got a sweet little angel, people/I love the way she spread her wings/Yes, when she spread her wings around me/I got joy and everything

Perhaps the most popular tune (and biggest chart success) in B.B.’s career was his minor key crossover hit “The Thrill Is Gone,” a major hit single in 1970 before appearing on the album Completely Well that year. Though not a favorite of mine (I was never a fan of Bert "Super Charts" DeCoteaux’s ‘tasty’ string arrangements, though I dug Jerry Jemmott’s electric bass groove and Paul Harris’ understated Wurlitzer electric piano accompaniment along with Hugh McCracken’s Wes Montgomery-inspired octavces work and jazzy single note flourishes at the tag) it was nonetheless an undeniably moving statement that eventually became a standard B.B. set-closer.

Just as B.B. was beginning to enjoy some crossover success, I went backwards in time to the very beginning of B.B.’s career. At Radio Doctors in downtown Milwaukee I was able to pick up older albums from his Crown Records years, like 1957’s Singin’ the Blues, which included familiar numbers like “Everyday I Have the Blues” and yet another version of “Sweet Little Angel” with a proto-rock/doo-wop arrangement and some particularly nasty/stinging guitar work from B.B. (and more than a few absolutely toe-curling string-bends).

I also picked up a copy of B.B.’s 1958 album, The Blues (which I would present to him for an autograph when I encountered him backstage at an outdoor blues festival in Wisconsin in 1975), and instantly fell in love with his high-pitched vocals on the plaintive song, “I Want to Get Married.”

And though I really dug the boogie woogie groove and Charlie Christian-inspired guitar playing on “That Ain’t the Way to Do It” from that record, I couldn’t really condone the concluding verse, which seems painfully dated now in these post-#MeToo times: If you got a woman and she won’t treat you right/Beat her three times a day and whoop her late at night/That is the way to do it, that is the way to do it/That is the way to do it, that’s the way to get along

My wife Lauren’s personal favorite B.B. King album is 1970’s Indianola Mississippi Seeds, which she bought while studying art at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette. With a picture of a watermelon converted into an electric guitar and plugged into a funky old amp on the cover, this Bill Szymczyk-produced followup to the hit single “The Thrill Is Gone” contained a hauntingly beautiful version of Leon Russell’s minor key “Hummingbird” a New Orleans R&B flavored “Ask Me No Questions” (with Russell on piano and Joe Walsh on rhythm guitar) and a moaning rendition of “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother,” with B.B. accompanying himself on slightly out of tune piano. Carole King also plays piano and contributes backup vocals throughout this album.

The following year (January 1971) saw the release of Live in Cook County Jail, which I have always thought was superior to the more hyped Live at the Regal. Derek Trucks agreed with me on that point in a Downbeat interview I conducted with him a few years ago. As he said, “Cooks is my favorite, man. That’s the one I go to to this day. If I’m ever feeling uninspired with my own playing I put on Cook County Jail and I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, THAT’S what a guitar does.’ His tone is just incredible on that album. And then on ‘Thrill is Gone,’ when he's speeding up and slowing down the band near the end of the tune, it sounds like a train coming to a fuckin’ stop. It’s so fuckin' good!”

There’s just a different level on intensity that permeates Cook County Jail, as one readily hears on the super uptempo shuffle-swing version of “Every Day I Have the Blues” that opens the set with a BANG!

And I don’t believe I ever heard B.B. deliver a rawer, more cathartic version of “How Blue Can You Get?” as he does on this sensational live album.

In October 1971, B.B. delivered his 19th studio album, the Ed Michel-produced B.B. King in London, featuring an all-star cast of Brit rockers, including Ringo Starr on drums, Steve Windwood on organ, Peter Green on electric guitar, Alexis Korner on acoustic guitar, Gary Wright on organ and Steve Marriott on harmonnica, along with Americans like Dr. John and David Spinozza on guitars and Bobby Keyes on saxophone. While not my favorite, it has some bright moments.

His 1972 album, L.A. Midnight, was largely a commercial effort, though it contained some gems like B.B.’s version of “Help the Poor,” which guitarist-singer Robben Ford would later cover on his 1988 album, Talk to Your Daughter. But the album was marred by meandering guitar jams like “Midnight” (with Joe Walsh) and “Lucille’s Granny” (with Jesse Davis and Walsh). B.B.’s followup album, 1972’s Guess Who, was similarly undistinguished, with an ill-advised, cheesy cover of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s hit, “Summer in the City.” However, he redeemed himself with a faithful rendition of Eddie Boyd’s “Five Long Years” (with an alto sax solo by David Sanborn) and a sweet take on Jessie Belvin’s “Guess Who,” which would remain in his set list for years.

B.B. rebounded from his flirtation with the commercial side of things with two downhome, real-deal collaborations in the mid ‘70s with the great blues singer Bobby “Blue” Bland — 1974’s Together for the First Time…Live and 1976’s Together Again…Live.

B.B.’s 1978 album Midnight Believer was a hit-and-miss collaboration with members of The Crusaders (keyboardist Joe Sample, drummer Stix Hooper, saxophonist Wilton Felder and bassist Robert “Pops” Popwell). Two funky tunes — the uplifting “When It All Comes Down (I’ll Still Be Around”), fueled by Pops’ snapping bass line, and Hooper’s “Never Make a Move to Soon” — were strong points on what was otherwise a rather dull, blatantly commercial offering.

B.B.’s collaboration with songwriting partners Mac (Dr. John) Rebennack and Doc Pomus produced some touching moments on 1981’s There Must Be A Better World Somewhere. The moving title track is sung with uncommon passion by B.B. and features some cathartic call-and-response with tenor saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman. “Life Ain’t Nothing But a Party” is fueled by Dr. John ‘s piano and buoyed by a lush horn section featuring alto saxophonist-arranger Hank Crawford, tenor saxophonist Newman, baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, trombonist Toms “Bones” Malone, and trumpeters Charlie Miller and Waymond Reed.

1982’s Love Me Tender was an unfortunate forway into countrypolitan, with covers of tunes by Conway Twitty, Don Gibson, Mickey Lewis, Eddie Reeves and Willie Nelson, among others. The title track is a schmaltzy take on the Elvis Presley ballad from 1956. And it’s all backed by sappy strings, Sonny Garrish’s pedal steel guitar and the Muscle Shoals Horns.

B.B. bounced back from that ill-advised detour to Nashville with the Grammy-winning 1983 album, Blues ‘N Jazz, which included tunes like Louis Jordan’s downhome “Inflation Blues” (with a nasty tenor sax solo by Arnett Cobb) and B.B.’s own “Sell My Monkey.” The Jazz aspect of this recording is provided by Major Holley’s deep grooving upright bass, Cobb’s raucous tenor solos, Warren Chiasson’s vibes work, Billy Butler’s guitar and Woody Shaw’s modernist trumpet solos.

I was less enthralled with 1985’s Six Silver Strings and 1989’s Al Kooper-produced King of the Blues. But B.B. showed he still had plenty of fire on 1990’s Grammy-winning Live At San Quentin, particularly on the opening “Let the Good Times Roll,” Dave Bartholomew’s “Whole Lotta Loving” and the rowdy audience participation number, “Rock Me Baby.”

1991’s There Is Always One More Time didn’t do it for me, but B.B. came roaring back with 1993’s Grammy-winning Blues Summit, a superb showcase featuring guest appearances from Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Joe Louis Walker, John Lee Hooker, Lowell Fulson, Kim Wilson, Katie Webster, Koko Taylor, Irma Thomas, Etta James and Ruth Brown. And his vocal intensity on a duet with Buddy Guy is off the charts good!

1997’s Dueces Wild was an uneven collection of duets with B.B. and various pop stars, including Van Morrison, Tracy Chapman, Bonnie Raitt, Mick Hucknall, Dionne Warwick, Joe Cocker, D’Angelo, Willie Nelson and The Rolling Stones. The album was also noteworthy for bringing B.B. and Eric Clapton together for the first time on record, showcasing a chemistry that they would later manifest in a big way on 2000’s Riding with the King. (They had actually performed together for the first time at Cafe Au Go Go in New York City in 1967 when Clapton was 22 and a member of Cream,)

1998’s excellent, Grammy-winning Blues on the Bayou, recorded at Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana, found the 73-year-old King in a relaxed, reflective mood on mournful originals like “Darlin’ What Happened,” “I’ll Survive” and the self-referential “Blues Man,” while he and his guitar Lucille stretched out on instrumentals like the slow, minor key “Blues Boys Tune,” “Blues We Like” and “If That Ain’t It I Quit.” And he conveyed some deep acrimony on the vengeful “Broken Promise,” which included this harsh indictment: You don’t love me, you don’t even wish me well/Honor’s just a joke for you, baby/You don’t love me, I can tell/Married life with you, baby, I’d rather be living in a cell.

B.B. made a triumphant return the following year with 1999’s Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan, which found the King of the Blues backed by a stellar band including Dr. John on piano, New Orleans legend Earl Palmer on drums, Hank Crawford and David “Fathead” Newman on saxophones, Marcus Belgrave on trumpet and Russell Malone on guitar. Whereas the previous Blues on the Bayou may have been full of heartache and misery, this joyously upbeat offering did precisely what the title suggested. B.B. also shared a Grammy with Dr. John in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category for their playful duet on “Is You Is, Or Is You Ain’t My Baby.”

B.B. picked up another Grammy for 2000’s Riding with the King, his collaboration with Eric Clapton which sold double-platinum. While big production rockers like John Hiatt’s title track and Doyle Bramhall II/Charlie Sexton’s “I Wanna Be” may be foreign territory for the King of the Blues, he is in more a familiar setting on vintage B.B. songs like “Ten Long Years,” “Three O’Clock Blues” (his hit single from 1951), “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer” and “Help the Poor.” And Clapton stands his ground, going toe-to-toe with B.B. in the solo department while contributing soulful, rough-hewn vocals throughout. The band on this Clapton-produced project is first-rate, including Joe Sample on keyboards, Nathan East on bass and Steve Gadd on drums. And a surprise here is hearing B.B. playing acoustic guitar on “Key to the Highway.”

B.B.’s won another Grammy for 2005’s 80, a star-studded duets album with an odd assortment of guests ranging from Van Morrison, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler to Roger Daltrey (“Never Make Your Move Too Soon”), Billy Gibbons (“Tired of Your Jive”), Elton John (“Rock This House”), Glenn Frey, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Daryl Hall and Gloria Estefan. And he was reunited with his old friend and colleague Bobby “Blue” Bland on a moving rendition of Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away.”

B.B.’s final album was one of this very best. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, 2008’s One Kind Favor won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. That heartfelt swan song included such emotional numbers as Lonnie Johnson’s “Tomorrow Night” and his funereal “Backwater Blues,” T-Bone Walker’s “Waiting for Your Call” and Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” along with rockers like Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years” and a version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sitting On Top of the World.” And the whole superb session is underscored by Dr. John’s New Orleans flavored, Professor Longhair-drenched piano tinkling alongside session drummer extraordinaire Jim Keltner’s signature backbeat.

My first eye-opening encounter with B.B. King in concert took place at The Milwaukee Theatre on March 2, 1969. I was not yet 15 at the time and my brother Tom (four years older than me) drove me and my pal Rick Weinman to the concert, a star-studded affair that also included Muddy Waters, Shakey Horton and other bluesmen. The following week, B.B. had a week-long engagement at The Apollo in Harlem.

I didn’t see him in concert again until he played Summerfest in Milwaukee on July 20, 1972, then caught him again on Feb. 15, 1973 at the Milwaukee Auditorium. Seeing him perform on Feb. 1, 1976 at The Turning Point, an intimate inner city nightclub where he really let his guard down in front of this almost exclusively black audience, was a rare treat. He returned to Milwauke later that summer, on July 18, 1976, for the Kool Jazz Festival, where he shared the bill at County Stadium (home of the Milwaukee Brewers) with Al Green, The Staple Singers, Nancy Wilson and Archie Bell & The Drells.

The first time I ever interviewed B.B. was on Jan. 31, 1979 at Headliners, a popular rock club in Madison. I made the drive up from Milwaukee with my pal Rick and I ended up doing a brief interview backstage with him prior to his set that night. I was a bit nervous being in the presence of the King, but his calm, gentlemanly demeanor eventually cooled me out and we had a nice chat.

Following a move to New York in September of 1980, I continued to see B.B. in concert at various locations, from the Beacon Theatre on Oct. 1980 to The Ritz on Feb. 4, 1981. On Jan. 23, 1982, I caught B.B. and his band at My Father’s Place on Long Island (Roslyn). He announced to the packed house that he was suffering from a bit of laryngitis and wouldn’t be able to sing that night. And he proceed to launch into an extremely rare all-instrumental set, where he and the organ player engaged in all kinds of animated call-and-response and he let each and every horn player stretch to the max. I was in heaven that night.

I was at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 6, 1983 for a great B.B. concert and later saw him open for Miles Davis at the Beacon Theater on April 5, 1986. I caught him at the Apollo Theater on Nov. 10, 1990 in rare form backed by the Philip Morris Super Band featuring guitar great Kenny Burrell, pianist Gene Harris, legendary bassist Ray Brown and a stellar horn section that included baritone sax ace Gary Smulyan, tenor sax greats Plas Johnson and Ralph Moore, alto saxophonist Jeff Clayton, trombonists Urbie Green and Robin Eubanks, and the great Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet. That gig was documented on the 1991 GRP album, Live at the Apollo, which earned a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

When the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill opened in Times Square in 2000, I attended many of his performances there. The last time I saw him play there was on Oct. 23, 2013, though he was doing more talking than playing. He seemed to be in good spirits that night and was openly sharing stories with the crowd, just speaking extemporaneously between songs, reminiscing and riffing in a good-hearted manner until some yokel in the back of the room yelled out, “Shut up and play,” which was very disheartening. You don’t treat the blues royalty in such a disrespectful manner. I just hope somebody took that ill-mannered mook outside and beat his ass on 42nd Street for assaulting the King of the Blues like that. He died on May 14, 2015 at his home in Las Vegas. And we celebrate him today on his centennial.

The following story, which I did for the Sept. 8, 1981 issue of Good Times, a biweekly entertainment publication on Long Island where I served as managing editor, is my account of riding with B.B. on his band bus, conducting an interview with him on his way to Riker’s Island, where he would perform a concert at the women’s prison:

Jailhouse Blues: B.B. King Plays Riker’s Island

The bus pulled away from the glitzy Hyatt Regency Hotel in Manhattan, loaded with rock writers and other press people, all beaming and cackling amongst themselves like over-anxious schoolchildren on an afternoon field trip to Farmer Vic’s Petting Zoo. But a representative from the New York City Department of Corrections soon put things in a more realistic perspective for us all with a brief greeting:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are on our way to Riker’s Island. It is not a country club, it’s a prison. But relax, it should be a pleasant ride and a pleasanter concert.”

Visions of The Dick Van Dyke Show ran through my head — the one where Rob Petrie Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrell, that team of writers from the mysical “Allen Brady Show,” go to entertain the inmates, and through some mishap Rob ends up in a jail cell. Zany situation comedy, right? But I’m willing to bet that the notion crossed everyone’s mind on this bus. After all, hadn’t there been a rash of recent escapes from Riker’s within the last couple of weeks? It was front page news in the New York Post, as I recall. And reports of prison tension certain stuck in our minds, having seen the vivid details of Attica and other full-scale riots chronicled on TV over the past few years. This was the grim reality of prison life. Even B.B. King himself admitted to being “quite a bit nervous” before and after these prison concerts.

His appearance this Tuesday afternoon at the Riker’s Correctional Institution for Women would be his 40th prison concert since 1970, when he started his personal crusade to boost morale inside prisons with his historic Cook County Jail concert (which was recorded and released as a live album by ABC Records).

By 1972, B.B. organized those efforts with the help of lawyer F. Lee Bailey by establishing the Foundation for the Advancement of Inmate Rehabilition & Recreation (FAIRR). Based in Washington, D.C., this non-profit organization is dedicated to improving the morale and rehabilitation efforts of prisons through cultural exposure to entertainers, writers, musicians, public figures and sports personalites, and by seeking better quality libraries, music selections, films and literature for incarcerated people.

In a press conference before the afternoon concert at Riker’s Island, B.B. explained, in his typically soft-spoken, gentlemanly manner: “We are trying to convey a message to the inmates. We want them to know that there are people out here who care about them. Don’t get me wrong, I think if a person is guilty then he should serve his time. But if conditions aren’t right inside a prison, they should complain. We want to help these people get fair treatment. We feel that when the inmates get a chance to tell their story and the press gets a chance to talk about it, we’re telling the kids out there on the streets that it’s no piece of cake on the inside.”

The 55-year-old former cotton picker from Indianola, Mississippi, now regarded as the foremost blues singer and guitarist of our time, claims he has spent only one night in jail. “I was caught speeding in Mississippi and they couldn’t find a judge that night, so I had to spend the night in jail. But I didn’t like it behind those bars.” He added, “So I feel sad for anybody that can’t be free to do what they want to do. I don’t think at first of what the conditions were that got the person in there in the first place, I just think about the sadness of them being behind those bars.”

B.B. rode along with us on that 15-minute bus ride to Rider’s Island, then when we reached the checkpoint, he bid us adieu: “See you on the inside.” After going through the security ritual of signing in, getting stamped, being pinned and accounted for, we were led to a 300-seat auditorium and instructed to occupy the first three rows while the inmates would fill in the section which had been rope off behind us. These were women awaiting trial as well as those serving terms of up to one year — hardly the desperado death row types B.B has performed for under more tense conditions at places like Jackson State Prison in Michigan or the Mississippi Penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi (aka Parchman Farm), where angrey all-male crowds gathered to not only watch B.B. play the blues but to voice their complains about inadequate conditions.

Some of the scribes in attendance actually admitted to being slightly disappointed by the relative tameness of the scene at Riker’s. Some longed for the clang of iron bars and anticipated a room thick with tension. No such luck. The woman at Riker’s were escorted in orderly fashion by female guards and with no altercations. There was no over sense of unrest or anger, although most of the women appeared stone-faced, sullen and generally joyless…until the music started.

The concert, scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., didn’t start until 4:30 due to some transportation foulups with B.B.’s organization (for which he apologized profusely once he hit the stage). But as one jaded member of the press noted about this captive audience, “What’s the difference? They ain’t goin’ nowhere anyhow.”

Because of the long delay, the entire show was honed down to fit into the remaining time allotment (only about 40 minutes). Finally, when “that dynamic gentleman of the blues,” as he was introduced, made his entrance on stage, sporting a cream-colored safari suit with his black Lucille guitar cradled in his arms, those stone-cold faces erupted into grins. They stood en masse with clenched fists raised to the ceiling and shouted out encouragements to the King of the Blues: “Do it, B! Go on ahead, baby!”

He got right down to business with “Every Day I Have the Blues.” B.B.’s playing on that opener was as ferocious as I had ever seen him play. Those long sustaining high notes, that characteristic grimace with every bend of a string…it drove ‘em wild! The women screamed through a slow blues and he obliged them with “Don’t Answer the Door.” And they laughed knowingly at the pained lament on “Strange Things”: If you know you don’t want me baby, why in the world don’t you let me be/Because it’s better to live without you, baby, than to live in misery.

More lyrics hit home in the audience when he sang: Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’ me too.

B.B. reached out to those “forgotten people” with raw emotion and truth that touched them. And for 40 brief minutes, he filled their spirits with hope and joy. He made them laugh and let loose to stamp their feet, even though some hulking female guards off to the side were not amused, telling the rowdy women in no uncertain terms to “Sit down!”

Just to tantalize and tease and further entertain, B.B. “auctioned off” each one of the strapping young men in his band (a novel way of introductions). And the bids were high for James “Boogaloo” Bolens, a hefty trumpet player who rolled his belly and shook his booty around like a cement mixer.

The crowd then shouted out requests for “The Thrill Is Gone,” and B.B. accomodated them with this mintor key set-closer. Then the women were marched back to their cells and us scribes were marched back onto the bus. B.B. did not make that trip back to Manhattan with us. He was already on to the next gig.