I Love Lucille...

....that's what 2 guys were probably shouting at each other before their brawny brawl knocked out the kerosene and set the dance hall in Twist, Arkansas on fire on a cold winter night in 1949. On stage was a 24-year old blues boy called B.B.King who was feeling like a king standing on the stage and singing the blues. Upon seeing the fire break out in front of his eyes, King ran out of the burning wooden hall but then he realized that he had left his beloved $30 Gibson behind! He ran back in to fetch the 6-string and made it back out just fine through the burning rubble of the dance hall.

BB King later realized that the fire broke out because the 2 dudes who caused the fire were fighting over a girl called Lucille. The fire that was burning inside the 2 guys caused a real fire which was to claim their lives. How primitive but yet it invokes images of the great battles fought between kings of old where there was always a woman to blame. There were many things that were lost in this great fire in the Twist dance hall but the fire provided for a twist of fate for the BB King legacy.

We all have done stupid crap in our lives that there comes a point where you decide to never do "those stupid things" ever again. BB King decided to call his six string that he rescued going back into the burning hall "Lucille" to remind himself not to do something as stupid as going back into a burning place or maybe even fight over a girl! King never met Lucille but the name followed him to the grave because the 6-string made him 6-figures more than 6-times over! King wouldn't be doing himself justice if he didn't make an album titled Lucille (c1969).

Notice that the guitar is resting on wood which is allusion to the wood that the dance hall in Twist was made with. The Les Paul like sun burst on the back of the guitar is an allusion to the fire that happened. It's reported that this guitar that King rescued from the conflagration that rose out of that drunken altercation cost a mere $30 which is double the money he paid for his first guitar in his early 20's.

Lucille is now as much a part of American music history  as the Ring Of Fire. Love is a burning flame and as an old lady keeping the Grand Ole Opry store at the Nashville airport said to me "art came to life" ( she was referring to the Cash & Carter residence in Hendersonville burning down ). The lyrics of the song "Lucille" paint a great picture!

The sound that you're listenin' to
Is from my guitar that's named Lucille
I'm very crazy about Lucille
Lucille took me from the plantation
Or you might say brought me fame

I don't think I can just talk enough about Lucille
Sometimes when I'm blue it's seems like Lucille
Tryin' to help me callin' my name

I used to sing spirituals and I thought that
This was the thing I wanted to do
But somehow or another, when I went in the Army
I picked up on Lucille, started singin' blues

Well, now when I'm payin' my dues
Maybe you don't know what I mean when I say payin' my dues
I mean when things are bad with me
I can always, I can always you, you know, like depend on Lucille

Sorta hard to talk to you myself
I guess, I'll let Lucille say
All of a few words and then

You know, I doubt if you can feel it like I do
But when I think about the things that I've gone through
Like, well, for instance, if I have a girlfriend and she's misusin' me
And I go home at night, maybe I'm lonely
Well, not maybe, I am lonely

I pick up Lucille and then ping out those funny sounds
That sound good to me, you know
Sometimes I get to play it where I can't even say nothin'
Look out
Sometimes I think it is cryin'

You know if I can sing pop tunes like
Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr.
I don't think I still could do it
'Cause Lucille don't wanna play nothin' but the blues
And I think I'm, I think I'm pretty glad about that
'Cause don't nobody sing to me like Lucille, sing Lucille

Well, I'll put it like this, take it easy, Lucille
I like the way Sammy sings and I like the way Frank sings
But I can get a little Frank, Sammy, little Ray Charles
In fact all the people with soul in this

A little Mahalia Jackson in there
One more Lucille, take it easy now

You know, I've met a lot of you months ago
A lot of you wanna know why I call the guitar, Lucille
Lucille has practically saved my life two, three times
No kidding, really has

I remember once I was in an automobile accident
And when the car stopped turnin' over, it fell over on Lucille
And it held it up off of me, really, it held it up off of me
So that's one time it saved my life

The way, the way, I, uh, I came by the name of Lucille
I was over in Twist, Arkansas, I know you never heard of that
But happened and one night, the guys started a ball over there
You know started brawlin', you know what I mean

And the guy that was mad with this old lady
When she fell over on this gas tank that was burnin' for heat
The gas ran all over the floor and when the gas ran all over the floor
The building caught on fire and almost burned me up
Tryin' to save Lucille

Uh, oh, I, I imagine you're still wondering why I call it Lucille
The lady that started the brawl that night was named Lucille
And that's been Lucille ever since to me

One more now, Lucille
Sounds pretty good to me, can I do one more?
Look out, Lucille
Sounds really good, I think I'll try one more, alright

I happened to read an iTunes review where one reader had written "If you needed proof of an artist who touched several generations, my mother owned a 45rpm of "Lucille""! BB King sold millions of records worldwide no matter how good or bad the technology got. In fact, technological advances make an artist sound better. How about Neil Young putting out an ultra HD music player called Pono and then soon after he puts out "A Letter Home" which sounds anything but hi-def!

A Letter Home was recorded in a refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph vinyl recording booth at Jack White's Third Man Records recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Of this method, White said, "we were obfuscating beauty on purpose to get to a different place, a different mood." Let's leave it that because it's all art and you have to respect the artist's pov. 

Art comes to life. The first week of May greeted me with news of a Texas Flood and some travel plans which is best expressed by this Jimmy Rogers song below :

The week of 05.11.15 found me in Chicago, a city that burnt down in 1871 thanks to a fire that was caused by either a cow or some dudes gambling. So much for Gambler's Blues. But the destruction caused by the fire paled in comparison to the prosperity that later came Chicago's way in the years that ensued. They rebuilt Chicago after the fire with a fiery resolute and it's one of America's greatest stories because remember at one point Chicago had the tallest building in the world! A lot of shingles got nailed as they indulged in the midwestern urban sprawl but you bet there was always a drunken brawl on any given night. 

On Wednesday night of that week in May, I found myself at Kingston Mines which is one of Chicago's premier blues bars. It's been there for about 47 years. On this trip to Windy City, I decided to skip the Chicago dogs and the deep dish pizza for blues music after steak and gin. The very first song I heard on the first stage was Otis Rush' "Hold That Train" which made me euphoric ( because I knew the song )  and the dude playing the green Gibson Les Paul in a green T-Shirt did justice and he even came out amongst the crowd while on the long solo. It's good they figured out how to send notes from the fretboard wirelessly to the amps!

I had the great privilege of seeing Carl Weathersby on the night of 05.13 at Kingston Mines. 

Carl used to play with one of the "3 Kings Of The Blues" back in the day and that king was Memphis blues legend Albert King ( Freddie & BB being the other 2 kings ). I really enjoyed Carl's take on Albert King's megahit  "Born Under A Bad Sign"  and I thought it was cool that Carl used a Gibson Flying V which was Albert King's choice of axe. What did Albert King call his Gibson V ? Lucy. He even made a song "(I love)Lucy". Here is the late great Albert King posing with his signature Flying V Gibson. 

Carl Weathersby ( he is right handed ) almost looked like a slimmer B.B. King to me with his onstage persona but the way Carl shredded that Flying V you could almost call him the black Van Halen. I enjoyed his show and I went back to my hotel room at midnight although the blues always sound better at 3 AM which is why in Chicago they play till 4 AM and since no alcohol is served between 4 AM & 7 AM it makes for a really long 3 hours as the emcee at the show told us way in advance at 10PM. I woke up on Thursday morning and packed my bags to head back South and back home to Dallas. This is how I felt....

The news that greeted me as I landed back in the South on 05.14.15 was that B.B. King passed away. The Thrill Is Gone is the first thought that struck my mind. The Beale Street Blues Boy has left us all because there must be a better world somewhere. Art comes to life...

It wasn't till a few weeks ago that he was hospitalized near his Vegas home and a few days later he had announced on Twitter that he was feeling good again although he didn't say he was ...

But he said enough for all his fans and fans of blues around the world to know that King was ...

Everybody was hopeful that King would be back out on stage because ...

But not this time. After he had left the hospital he also didn't say he was "Hard Again" like Muddy Waters did when he started getting calls from across the Pond in the late 60's & 70's because the British were suddenly going nuts over Muddy, Howlin' Wolf and this "one of a kind" music that they were doing called the "blues"!

I wanted to take the time to reflect on what BB King's music meant to me as I recall hearing his name 10,000 miles away growing up in Southern India in the days when there was no internet or cable television. Imagine that. Imagine what an impact King had already made around the world by the end of the 1980's for that event to have happened in my life 10,000 miles east of the Mississippi Delta 30 some years ago! Get the picture ?

BB King was born in 1925 ... in the Jazz Age when F Scott Fitzgerald was I.T. or as they say these days “he was the S.H.I.T”. But BB King wrote a different kind of book for the people of the world. A book that told tales of life's challenges through a six string and King’s charismatic onstage live persona although I wouldn’t call him Billy Graham ( the preacher ) with a Gibson! This 1983  live version of “There must be a better world somewhere” touched my heart like very few live performances did and watching it the next day I felt the passage of time upon me.

Alan Jackson singing at the George Jones funeral was another moving live performance that ranks highly for me in terms of connecting with simple human emotions. When you are on the blue side of lonesome how blue can you get sitting on a bar stool at the 3 Tear Drops bar ? Just ask Jim Reeves...

Human life is filled with challenges everyday and as John Lee Hooker once said "this life is tough, you've gotta fight every day to stay in it". As you fight the good fight there will be some problems here and there. But no matter what your problems are you'll never leave this world alive. But when you are alive in this world you'll never escape the allure of music and the simple rest & recreation it offers. 

Music is one of the greatest healing forces in the world but in order for the healing to happen music must provide relief & release to an ordinary human being born of flesh & blood into this world. You achieve that with thoughtful song writing, clever phrasing of notes to complement the lines you wrote and above all charismatic delivery. A great musician sings TO people and an ordinary musician sings AT people – there’s a huge difference there.

Human beings love simplicity and simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. BB King broke down all kinds of social barriers & norms of the time and simplified such a complex genre of music ( the blues ), in fact the most important genre of American music, into a state that ordinary people who could not write songs or play a six string could relate to because King sang TO people instead of singing AT people. 

Very few musicians could break the mold and do that to such a big audience of humanity. Loretta Lynn did something similar in the female country music scene – she wrote and sang songs drawing upon her own life and troubles which struck a chord with many women listeners who had to deal with similar life struggles in the realms of relationships with other miserable human beings. She sang TO her audience instead of AT her audience. Here is a really fun animated video where BB King talks about how he connects with the audience when he takes the stage.

No matter what  you do in life BB King's "Live At The Regal" is one of those Live albums I think every human being should listen to at least once in their lifetime!

Blues-Rock superstar Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart's collaboration album SEESAW used an album cover art which was a nod to King's Regal album cover art. I SEESAW the resemblance immediately!

Upon losing the "Texas A&M maroon" from the cover, this is what the bigger picture looked like with them in a slightly different pose in the same clothes!

That Les Paul in Joe's grip costs as much as a Ferrari would! Joe Bonamassa put out this killer Youtube tribute video in the days following King's death. BB King saw the prodigy in Joe and gave him a shot on stage when Joe was barely a teen!

BB King was larger than life but he had his share of life's problems especially the diabetes and it's very inspiring that he carried out his life's mission to the end doing what he loved and loving what he did inspite of all his health challenges. Music kept his heart beating and if his illness didn't kill him it appeared to make him stronger. BB King was going places and it was only last year that he appeared in a commercial for the Toyota Camry where he signs a Lucille guitar for a girl who found the iconic 6 string in a forgotten garage. Here is the unforgettable ad :

But all the goodwill that BB King created for Toyota in public eye has evaporated into thin air because in a few days after King's death, Japanese airbag supplier Takata's problems has caused all major Japanese car manufacturers to announce the largest vehicle recall in American automotive history. How big ? 34 million cars which is about 1 in 7 cars in America. Back in his prime, BB King flew himself to many concerts so he didn't have to worry about no airbags back then but of course he had to careful in the air!

Root before shoot. The roots of blues music that BB King opened the world's eye to is found deep in the soil of the Deep South. The seeds of blues music which later on blossomed into the great banyan shoot of American music were laid in the cotton plantations of the Deep South and studying the history of the evolution of blues music is a fantastic way to appreciate America especially the whole "race thing". 

I arrived in America when I was 21 years old free of all prejudices and with a fresh set of eyes which has proven to be my most important asset in understanding how music shapes culture, how culture shaped music and the pivotal role the British played in rescuing blues music at a time when African Americans had themselves dismissed blues as being "gold tooth" & "handkerchief-head music" with the rise of Motown music.

Like a lot of famous African American blues musicians of yore, BB King was born into a family of sharecroppers who lived around the Mississippi delta. The MS Delta is the most hallowed piece of geography in America with respect to music because you could talk about the music that flowed out of the delta till the end of time. The Delta was fertile for lyrics and licks however I highly doubt any world changing music will be created from the Mekong Delta over in the Orient. It just isn't like America there. 

If the Chinese made similar delta music they'd call it "reds" instead of "blues". Red for communism not the Republican Party mind you and now do you see what the Commies & the 'phants have in common ?! It's worth noting that BB King was the first blues players to play in the Soviet Union. How blue can the Reds get ? Kim Jong-un, the nutcase ruling North Korea, is a fan of Katy Perry I understand but his brother Kim Jong-chul went missing after attending 2 back to back Eric Clapton concerts early this month. "Cocaine" to blame ? I don't think Jong-chul will be allowed to write "Clapton Is God" anywhere on the public walls of North Korea.

A king is born. BB King was born on September 16, 1925, on a cotton plantation called Berclair, near the town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers Albert and Nora Ella King. He considered the nearby city of Indianola, Mississippi to be his home and he paid tribute to his roots with the 1970 album titled "Indianola Mississippi Seeds". How about that album cover ?!

A humbucker deep set in a watermelon and a set neck on the rim of a watermelon! How cool is this ?! It's worth noting that a certain Joe Walsh played rhythm guitar on many of the tracks of this King album. Walsh hadn't "flown like an Eagle yet" and this 1970 BB King album was 5 years prior to Walsh becoming an Eagle. 

This album here was BB King's highest charting studio album because it was produced in a way to add to King's growing crossover appeal. White rock musicians, among them Leon Russell and Carole King, backed him; the rawer edges of his sound were toned down in the mix; and his lyrics leaned toward melancholy rather than the rage he sometimes expressed in cases of broken relationships. You don't want to sound like a broken record when singing about broken relationships. 

This transition of King's to a more polished sound reminds me of country music's transition from crude honky tonk music to cosmopolitan country but blues music never had the Outlaw movement. In fact blues music was cranked up by the English and that became Rock music. Led Zeppelin can attest to this. One of my favorite Southern Rock songs is a song about "a black man" who was the "finest pickup to ever play the blues" and that's exactly how Lynyrd Skynyrd described the "Ballad of Curtis Loew"!

BB King was innovation personified in his profession. I believe innovation happens when there are 'confluences of influences' and then you add a little extra juice to the whole thing. If whatever new that is created sticks around in the consciousness of the world for a long period of time, it will be deemed as being 'far ahead of it's time' in hindsight. BB King like many famous musicians had his influences. In fact 2 of his biggest influences were blues musicians from my "adopted country of Texas".

First there were the sounds of the "Father of Texas Blues", Blind Lemmon Jefferson singing acoustic guitar hits like "Match Box Blues" & "That Black Snake Moan" playing out of Aunt Mima's record player that struck a chord with King early in life. Second and the most profound influence on King was electric blues pioneer T-Bone Walker whose electric blues King tuned in but never dropped out of during his days DJ'ing as the Beale Street Blues Boy in Memphis. King had this to say once upon a time about T-Bone Walker : 

"Once I'd heard him for the first time, I knew I'd have to have [an electric guitar] myself. 'Had' to have one, short of stealing!" 

It's one of life's ironies that BB King had his 80th anniversary Lucille stolen from him ( and then later returned to him )! Maybe someone was trying to be BB King just like BB King was trying to be like T-Bone Walker back in the day in Memphis. I was just Walking In Memphis and I saw the ghost of Elvis...

Perhaps my favorite of King's early life musical influences is Lonnie Johnson who was born in the late 1800's in New Orleans as the great genre of Jazz was being invented right there in the Big Easy. I managed to buy "The Very Best Of Lonnie Johnson" from iTunes a few months ago and those 34 songs of his are some of my all time favorites to chill to. "Jelly Roll Baker" is the ultimate Lonnie Johnson song to me and how about this Youtube video showing a gramophone playing that song of his!

Guess who else was hugely influenced by Lonnie Johnson ? Bob Dylan! In the liner notes for Biograph, Bob Dylan describes his encounters with Lonnie Johnson in New York City. "I was lucky to meet Lonnie Johnson at the same club I was working and I must say he greatly influenced me. You can hear it in that first record. I mean Corrina, Corrina...that's pretty much Lonnie Johnson."  

Even though BB King did 200-plus shows a year it was Bob Dylan who decided to call his life on the road the "Never Ending Tour". Lonnie Johnson was also a huge influence on a certain Robert Johnson who in turn almost cast a spell on Eric Clapton. That's how this album of Eric Clapton happened!

Where do you think "Malted Milk" from Clapton's famous MTV Unplugged show came from ?! BB King had a special place in his heart for a certain Frank Sinatra who gave King great chances to be discovered to mainstream audiences at big venues like they have in Las Vegas. Here is an excerpt from King's 1997 autobiography "Blues All Around Me" where he chronicles the story of his interactions with Sinatra :

"Even if I hadn't been making music, I would still have been loving and listening to music. I loved listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing all the great songs of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. Same went for Sarah Vaughn. And double that for Frank Sinatra.

I'd been a Frank Sinatra Fan since the forties when he sang with Tommy Dorsey. I'm a Sinatra nut. No one sings a ballad with more tenderness. I practically put that In the Wee Small Hours album under my pillow every night when I went to sleep. And when Sinatra wants to swing, no one swings any harder. No one phrases any hipper. With those Nelson Riddle and Billy May charts, with the Count Basie band in Vegas, Sinatra was the slickest singer around. You could hear all the hurt and happiness in his voice; you could appreciate how he put his life experience into his songs. He always sang the truth.

I'd started playing all black clubs on the edge of Vegas. That was back in the fifties. By the seventies, Sid was able to slip me into the Caesar's Palace, thanks to Frank Sinatra, who was headlining. They asked Sinatra whether it was all right for me to play Nero's Nook, the lounge. "Hell, Yes!" he said. Not just "Yes", but "Hell, Yes!" That meant a lot to me.

Meant even more to meet the man… I saw him as the singer's singer. I'd been studying Sinatra since the forties. I knew Jilly Rizzo, Frank's friend, who set up the get-together. It was postponed a couple of times because Sinatra's mom was sick. Sammy Davis and Nancy Wilson filled in for him. Meanwhile, we'd already been playing the lounge and doing great business. In the middle of the week, Rizzo came over and said "Frank's ready to see you."

It was 3 a.m. and we'd finished our last set. I was ready. I rode the elevator up to the penthouse. Big double doors, big entryway, Inside lots of gorgeous girls milling around an enormous suite overlooking the strip, a billion watts of neon aglow below. "Frank just flew in from Palm Springs," said Rizzo. "He'll be out in a second." 

I waited, a little uncomfortable, a lot exited. Finally, Frank appeared, a couple of guys at his side. 

"Hi B," he said. "I'm happy to see you." 

"Happy to see you, too, Frank."

"Hear you're packing 'em in down stairs." 

"Things seem to be going well, Frank." 

"Look, B," he said, "I'm dead tired. I need to go to bed. But I got some booze and some broads. Help yourself." And with that, the man was gone.

I didn't take advantage of his generosity. It wasn't exactly my crowd, but I believe Sinatra was sincere. As a guy in a room talking to me face-to-face, he had a presence and a power I couldn't help but admire."

King developed a commercial style of the blues guitar-playing long on vibrato ( the famous BB King Butterfly Vibrato which really developed out of his inability to play slide ) and short, stinging guitar runs while singing almost exclusively about romance. Unlike the musicians who influenced him whose music bore geographic identities, King's music was not tethered to the style heard on the Mississippi plantation or the Beale Street sound in Memphis, where he first established his career. 

"The first rock 'n' roll I ever knew about was Fats Domino and Little Richard because they were playing blues, but differently," King said in the liner notes to MCA's 1992 box set King of the Blues. "And I started to do what I do now — incorporating. You can't just stay in the same groove all the time. … I tried to edge a little closer to Fats and all of them, but not to go completely."

He took rural 12-bar blues and welded it to big-city, horn-driven ensembles populated with musicians who understood swing and jazz but played music that worked a groove and allowed King's honey-sweet vocals and passionate guitar licks to stand out. His solos often started with a four- or five-note statement before sliding into a soothing, jazzy phrase; it's the combination of tension and release that King learned from gospel singers and the jazz saxophonists Lester Young and Johnny Hodges.

Them long haired white people. As I mentioned earlier, studying American music history gives one a chance to understand how American racial segregation laws of the 20th century influenced the business of the blues. In fact, it was largely thanks to white audiences that BB King became a household name. 

It's really simple to understand how it all used to be - blues musicians were mostly African American and they played only in black clubs because of racial segragation laws in America. If you really wanted to be a famous musician and make a shitload of money you had to 'crossover' - which means - that you had to be known amongst the white folks. For most of the 20th century, remember that whites mostly white males dictated the dollars earned and the dollars spent because the white male had all the jobs that paid a shitload of money. If they didn't bite, no fish and thus no dinner on the table. 

Just ask Chuck Berry. Or better just ask Jimi Hendrix - possibly the world's only African American rock musician - about all this when you run into him in a Valley of Neptune. Jimi was hugely helped by "very high white audiences" over in England during the days when the Beatles were driving America crazy with their "revisions on American music" most notably that of Chuck Berry and a certain Buddy Holly.

Hendrix never died. God just asked for a guitar lesson and maybe that's also the case with BB King. God just couldn't nail that butterfly vibrato of King's down. Architect Robert Gutman once said that every profession bears a responsibility to understand the circumstances that enable it's existence. The great Blues Architect's career had many pivotal moments where King was "discovered by white people". God works in mysterious ways. Let's look at 2 which came King's way in '65 & '68.

Bloom in the field 1965. Although B.B. King was a huge star in the African-American music community by 1965 he was still mostly unknown in the White community. In 1965 when Elektra Records released Paul Butterfield's first Butterfield Blues Band album, featuring the late Mike Bloomfield on guitar. Bloomfield became a star, almost overnight, and when he was asked where he learned to play the way he did, he replied, "By copying B.B.'s licks." No one knew who "B.B." was. And when they asked, "B.B." who? Bloomfield replied, "The real monster; B.B. King." After this happened B.B. King's popularity soared. 

Fill more of my glass that's half full 1968. Another pivotal moment came when King was booked into San Francisco's Fillmore West in 1968. Unbeknownst to King, it had been turned by legendary rock impresario Bill Graham into a leading hippie-era music palace. When King, a product of segregated Mississippi, saw "long-haired white people" lining up outside, he thought he had come to the wrong theater, he said. But after Graham introduced him, the crowd rose in a boisterous standing ovation — tears welled up in King's eyes, he recalled.

Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune recalls interviewing BB King in 1972 as follows : 

As an ambitious young journo, I was looking for controversy. I asked him ( King ) if he shared the objections that some black social critics, in particular, had expressed over the alleged hijacking of the blues by rising white blues musicians like Chicago's Paul Butterfield and England's Eric Clapton.

But instead of fuming with resentment, the widely celebrated King of the Blues quaked with laughter. He loved those young white musicians and the fans. "If it wasn't for them," I recall him saying, "I would have starved to death."

But it was the year 1970 that saw BB King reach where BB King had never been before when the song that we all associate him with, The Thrill Is Gone, hit the top of the charts and made BB King a real star.  

"I had been carrying 'The Thrill is Gone' around for seven or eight years," King said in the liner notes of King of the Blues. "Had tried it many times, but it would never come out like I wanted it. " We were in the studio from about 10 o'clock to 3 in the morning  and had done 'The Thrill' and a couple others. Funny thing was, [producer] Bill Szymczyk didn't like it at first. About five in the morning he calls me .... he says, 'I've got this idea to put strings on "Thrill" ' and I said 'fine.' About two weeks later he got Bert de Coteaux to put strings on it, and it really did enhance it."

With the addition of a hit record, Seidenberg ( King's accountant & manager ) was able to craft a unique path for King: Book him in white college concert markets and Las Vegas hotels and get his music in commercials for brands such as AT&T, Northwest Airlines and Wendy's. Soon after the epic success of The Thrill he stopped having to play the "chitlin circuit" ( small town black clubs ) and started playing larger jazz clubs, dining rooms of luxury resort hotels, college concerts and rock palaces such as Filmore East . King was in the money now. 

Also, a year before in 1969 B.B. made his first appearance on network television on Johnny Carson's the "Tonight Show." In 1971 B.B. sang and played on Ed Sullivan's show which had hosted the Beatles for the first time in America back in 1964. History shows many black musicians and composers, barred by segregation laws and customs in the pre-civil rights era, were denied adequate credit or compensation. Quite the opposite happened to King and the blues in the pivotal 1960s and 1970s ( the heydays of a certain Steve McQueen! ).

Sweet Sixteen. In my BB King collection, it's his song "Sweet Sixteen" of which I have every version BB King ever recorded of it. It's my favorite song of his which tops The Thrill. I have the Live versions of Sweet Sixteen he did at Cook County Jail, San Quentin and the Apollo Theater. The Billy Idol song "Sweet Sixteen" is not a cover of the BB King song in anyway! 

But the best cover of Sweet Sixteen out there has to be the one that Texas Blues-Rock legend Johnny Winter ( one of those long haired white people ) did on his 2014 album Step Back. The cover also featured a certain Joe Bonamassa who had the rare privilege of playing some guitar as a little boy next to BB King ! Check out Johnny Winter's take on Sweet Sixteen - it just ROCKS!

Johnny Winter passed away about a year ago in Switzerland soon after the release of Step Back ( which won a 2015 Grammy for Best Blues Album Of The Year ). How fitting that he decided to cover Son House' Death Letter Blues on Step Back!

Here is Son House himself playing Death Letter Blues which is my favorite Son House song although I like John The Revelator just as much!

Johnny Winter was popular all over the world like BB King was and as you see in the video above this, he had fans in Asia! It's reported that Winter did about 200 shows a year but he was the kind who didn't care a whole lot for the spotlight and royalties. BB King & the long haired white dude named Johnny Winter have headlined together and it was at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1969. This is what the setlist of the Winter-King '69 Newport Jazz festival looked like.

Johnny Winter had his share of health problems too but he played with an intensity like it was a force of nature going over and the same can be said of another Texas blues great : Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

Over the past year the blues world has lost 2 greats but BB King's death captured the headlines and made world news because he single handedly carried the blues genre all over the world - to paraphrase a Beatles song - with a little help from his friends. The Rolling Stones can attest to that! But that's what friends are for aren't they ?

Of the "3 Kings of the Blues" , besides Freddie King & Albert King , BB King was the most recognizable name to people from all over the world. I've had people in Texas draw a blank when I asked them if they knew who Freddie King was since FK hailed from Texas! Freddie King was called the Texas Cannonball because of his explosive licks. Freddie King thanks largely to Eric Clapton mentioning him a million times in interviews is known only to hardcore blues fans. Everyone who likes a little bit of blues & funk mixed up should definitely check out Freddie King's Burglar.

Death Letters. After receiving the news of BB King's death in Las Vegas, President Obama had the following words to say which was also a nod to King's greatest hit.

"The blues has lost its king, and America has lost a legend. B.B. may be gone, but that thrill will be us forever."

I want to say the dude in the dark shades in the background to the right has gotta be Jeff Beck! Derek Trucks is the long blond haired white dude to King's right.

Chicago Blues legend Buddy Guy had the following picture posted on his Instagram account.

Guy wrote : This morning, I come to you all with a heavy heart. BB King was the greatest guy I ever met. The tone he got out of that guitar, the way he shook his left wrist, the way he squeezed the strings... man, he came out with that and it was all new to the whole guitar playin' world. He could play so smooth, he didn't have to put on a show. The way BB did it is the way we all do it now. He was my best friend and father to us all. 
I'll miss you, B. I love you and I promise I will keep these damn Blues alive. Rest well. 
All my love, 
Buddy

Lenny Kravitz ( who is now known as the guy who performed at the 2015 SuperBowl next to Katy Perry ) posted this smokin' awesome shot of BB with the Lucille.

Kravitz wrote : BB, anyone could play a thousand notes and never say what you said in one. Less is more right ?

One of my favorite pictures which captures 2 entirely different generations of awesome guitar players in one picture came courtesy of John Mayer who had posted this amazing picture of him jamming on his Strat with the King.

Mayer was learning a thing or two under the King's watch. What can be done on the Lucille can "almost be done" on a Strat which is Mayer's axe of choice. Mayer wrote : What a sad day, and a monumental loss. BB King's life was in and of itself a time capsule, and a yardstick for modern music history, most of which played out under his watch. Some people, they seem to hold a certain governing time and space together, and when they pass, you just know the facts, the recollections, the details...they're left to fend for themselves. But the facts about BB will never fade: he was a pioneer in the inception of electric blues music and he was its grand ambassador generations later. He will forever inspire guitar players to argue (successfully) that less is more, that heart will always win over mind. Whenever your heart hurts and you don't know if you have it in you right then and there to make sense of it, put on some B.B. King and feel what happens. Today, B.B.'s music is going to do something it's never done before: help us through the blues we have from losing him. Goodbye, B... John

Making love is good for you. In present day America there is a lot of tension between black and white races especially when it comes to use of excessive force by the police. This isn't new. BB King's music and his life gives us a chance to reflect on why we are always better together. There is so much fighting going on in the world for all kinds of stupid shit. Let's all love each other instead of fighting each other. Let's make love and peace before profit. Love is always good for business. As King himself would tell you, Making Love Is Good For You. 

RIP BB KING.