Thursday, September 15, 2005 | By: Unknown

Happy Birthday BB King

I love him and his music, he has always been humble and his music has touched my life during times when I needed to hear something beautiful and uplifting or just plain awesome. His voice is still strong and his stage prescence is amazing for someone about to hit 80 years of age. The following quote is from BB himself regarding this wonderful music he plays with such love and devotion: "The Blues is the source. It has to do with people, places, and things. It's life, with all the emotion and passions. As long as we have them, we'll have Blues. The Blues contains all the basic feelings of human beings: pain, happiness, fear, courage, confusion, and desire, told in simple stories. That's the genius of the Blues." The story behind his initials "BB" is interesting since his given name is Riley and alot of folks aren't aware of it...

He learned the Blues in the cotton fields of Indianola, Mississippi, in the 1930s. He delved deeper into the Blues when he relocated to Beale Street in Memphis, where Riley B. King became "The Beale Street Blues Boy" before he shortened it to just "Blues Boy" and ultimately, to just B.B.

BB turns 80 tomorrow..he will be working of course, playing somewhere for people that adore him as I do.

3 people gave us their .02 cents:

DaMasta said...

Man, I love BB King. I went to this place, it was BB King's house of blues i think in Cali. anyways, it was wicked cool.

and I see you mentioned my roger in your last post. rock on! i love my 'stros. GO 'STROS!

thanks for posting on my blog! cya.

The Zombieslayer said...

What amazes me is that he hit 80 and he's still going. The guy has a bad case of diabetes yet just keeps chugging away and could still outplay so many young ones today.

He grew up in a time when it wasn't good to be a black man, yet he let his talent speak for itself. Even full-blown racists have to admit he has an amazing skill at the axe.

The guy's funny too. Knows how to reach people of different backgrounds. Shows us that we have more in common than we realize.

Always laughing too. When he dies, he really will be missed.


Here
is a link to Lucille. Amazing sounds he's gotten out of that Les Paul.

Happy B-day BB! Angus Young and the Zombieslayer love you!

Jill said...

Happy Birthday to BB! Looking forward to another 20 years!