There should be NC-17 stickers on B.B. King albums.
Maybe even NC-30 stickers.
Not because the Mississippi legend’s music is unsuitable for minors or young adults, but because the rewards of King’s art are hard to unlock for someone without miles behind them. There is a story about King opening for Sam Cooke in Maryland in the 1960s. The crowd was made up mainly of teenagers who booed King, who at the time was approaching 40. He never forgot the incident and later said, “They didn’t know about the blues.”
Keith Richards, the guitarist for the Rolling Stones, called it “grown man’s music.” King’s version is not flashy. It does not wallow. It gets inside, goes for the soft parts and dances. For that to happen, a listener needs a touch of age and vulnerability.
I shied away from King’s music for a long while. It felt polished and pre-packaged, lacking rawness. Eventually, though, I grew up a little, found his earlier albums and through them, his charm. (My favorite: “Indianola Mississippi Seeds,” released in 1970. It is underproduced, country-electric blues and contains my favorite King line: “Nobody loves me but my mother and she could be jivin’ too.”)
Those guitar licks — from his hit “The Thrill Is Gone” to “Everyday I Have the Blues” — are his and his alone. There is a temptation to call them simple, but that is not true. One note, and a listener knows: “That’s B.B. King.” That’s the mark of an artist who, to borrow a phrase, has won what he has in the flames.
In 2008, I met him.
The B.B. King Museum and Interpretive Center was opening in Indianola and I went to cover it. King showed up wearing that gracious smile, suit and tie. He explained that Bukka White, another Mississippi bluesman and mentor, once told him a blues singer should always dress “like you’re going to the bank to borrow money.”
Inside the museum, a British journalist asked him about “getting to play” with guitar players like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in the 1960s. “What did that mean to you?” the journalist said.
King let him finish, never stopped smiling and said: “I don’t want to be a party pooper, but I’m older than all them guys. I think they got to play with me.”
The King, indeed.
He died today in Las Vegas, where he made his home after fame found him. He was 89. He had been in ill-health.
Gov. Phil Bryant released a statement.
“Mississippi has lost a legend,” he said. “He is the king. The thrill is gone.”
I’ll politely disagree with that last part.
The thrill of King’s music will remain as long as folks grow old.
William Browning was managing editor for The Dispatch until June 2016.
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