B.B. King, born Riley B. King and also called the Beale Street Blues Boy and the King of the Blues, has died at the age of 89. Earlier this month, he announced he was in hospice care due to complications from diabetes. (Nearly 15 years ago, B.B. had become a paid spokesman for a blood glucose test device OneTouch. “OneTouch gave me everything,” he crooned in the TV ad.) Even at his advanced age, his death comes as a shock, since the blues legend toured well into his eighties. It was a bad omen, however, when B.B. collapsed during a performance and cancelled the remaining shows on what would be his final tour last year.
In losing B.B., we lose our connection to the original generation of rhythm and blues musicians, those black artists who took the rough acoustic sounds of the Mississippi Delta, stripped away the polished jazz elements that had come in Chicago, and created a new sound that combined syncopated rhythms and the 12-bar blues. B.B.’s contributions to the genre are many, but most important was that he gave R&B its first and most prolific guitar god.
