B.B. KING

1925-2015

We lost the legendary Riley B. King on the evening of May 14, 2015 at the age of 89.  B.B. died at his home in Las Vegas.  Riley B. King was born in Indianola, MS on September 16, 1925. He permanently moved to Memphis in 1948 and was soon broadcasting on all-black radio station WDIA. By the early ’50s, he was cutting sides with Sam Phillips at the Memphis Recording Service (before Phillips started Sun Records) and The Bihari Brothers’ RPM Records was issuing them. He scored his first #1 in 1951 with Lowell Fulson’s “Three O’Clock Blues,” and the rest is history.  Dig on my 55 audio obit below highlighting B.B.’s great musical achievements from 1951 to the present. He was one in a million and our last connection to the “true” blues.  He leaves an incredible body of work and a huge void in American Music.

-MTC