Description

Raised in Mississippi, where he was born in 1925, Riley B. King went on to become one of the blues most influential guitarists, blazing a trail with his distinctive semiacoustic Gibson guitar known as Lucille. An inability to sing and play at the same time saw him adopt a call and response routine with his guitar, echoing both gospel preaching and the chants from the cotton fields. Another limitation, a lack of facility at slide playing, led to him developing a mix of vibrato and sustain which, combined with bending notes on a single string, resulted in a distinctive sound. The Beale Street Blues Boys story hasnt ended yet: as the man himself says, As long as people have problems, the blues can never die.