B.B King

B.B. King was a blues singer and guitarist. His full name is Riley B. King. He was born September 16, 1925, near Indianola, Mississippi. An important aspect in King's life was, of course, when he was first exposed to the blues. 'I guess the earliest sound of the blues that I can rremember was in the fields while people would be pickin' cotton or choppin' or somethin,' " he told Living Blues . " When I sing and play now I can hear those same sounds that I used to hear then as a kid."

B.B. King's first musical influence came through religion. He was a member of the Church of God In Christ. He was forbidden to play blues at home. He sang in spiritual groups like the Elkhorn Singers and the Saint John's Gospel Singers. A relative who was a guitarist and a preacher showed King his first chords on the instrument. As a teenager he began playing streetcorners for coins, combining gospel songs with the blues. When he started making more money playing in one night then he would in a week on the farm, he decided to head to Memphis. After a few years, King went back to Indianola to work and repay some debts, eventually returning to Memphis to stay. King's trademark is the trilling vibrato he developed in an attempt to duplicate the stinging sound of the steel slide. With the help of the late Sonny Boy William- son he began singing radio commercials and became a disc jockey. Later he played in small clubs, and then in larger venues in the mid-1960's.