BB King
BB King can be booked through this site. BB King entertainment booking site. BB King
is available for public concerts and events. BB King can be booked for
private events and BB King can be booked for corporate events and
meetings through this BB King booking page.
Unlike most middle agents that would mark
up the performance or appearance fee for BB King, we act as YOUR agent in
securing BB King at the best possible price. We go over the rider for
BB King and work directly with BB King or the responsible agent for
BB King to secure the talent for your event. We become YOUR agent,
representing YOU, the buyer.
In fact, in most cases we can negotiate for
the acquisition of BB King for international dates and newer promoters
providing you meet professional requirements.
BB King Biography
Universally hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the
legendary B.B. King is without a doubt the single most important
electric guitarist of the last half century. A contemporary blues
guitar solo without at least a couple of recognizable King-inspired
bent notes is all but unimaginable, and he remains a supremely
confident singer capable of wringing every nuance from any lyric (and
he's tried his hand at many an unlikely song, anybody recall his
version of Love Me Tender? ).
Yet B.B. King remains an intrinsically humble superstar, an utterly
accessible icon who welcomes visitors into his dressing room with
self-effacing graciousness. Between 1951 and 1985, King notched an
amazing 74 entries on Billboard's R&B charts, and he was one of the
few full-fledged blues artists to score a major pop hit when his 1970
smash The Thrill Is Gone crossed over to mainstream success
(engendering memorable appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and American
Bandstand).
The seeds of King's enduring talent were sown deep in the blues-rich
Mississippi Delta. That's where Riley B. King was sired, in Itta Bena,
to be exact. By no means was his childhood easy. Young King was
shuttled between his mother's home and his grandmother's residence. The
youth put in long days working as a sharecropper and devoutly sang the
Lord's praises at church before moving to Indianola -- another town
located in the very heart of the Delta -- in 1943.
Country and gospel music left an indelible impression on King's musical
mindset as he matured, along with the styles of blues greats T-Bone
Walker and Lonnie Johnson and jazz geniuses Charlie Christian and
Django Reinhardt. In 1946, B.B. King set off for Memphis to look up his
cousin, rough-edged country blues guitarist Bukka White. For ten
invaluable months, White taught his eager young relative the finer
points of playing blues guitar. After returning briefly to Indianola
and the sharecropper's eternal struggle with his wife Martha, King
arrived in Memphis once again in late 1948. This time, he stuck around
for a while.
King was soon broadcasting his music live via Memphis radio station
WDIA, a frequency that had only recently switched to a pioneering
all-black format. Local club owners preferred that their attractions
also held down radio gigs so they could plug their nightly appearances
on the air. When WDIA DJ Maurice Hot Rod Hulbert exited his air
shift, King took over his record-spinning duties. At first tagged The
Peptikon Boy (an alcohol-loaded elixir that rivaled Hadacol) when WDIA
put him on the air, King's on-air handle became the Beale Street Blues
Boy, later shortened to Blues Boy and then a far snappier B.B.
1949 was a four-star breakthrough year for King. He cut his first four
tracks for Jim Bulleit's Bullet Records (including a number entitled
Miss Martha King after his wife), then signed a contract with the
Bihari Brothers' Los Angeles-based RPM Records. King cut a plethora of
sides in Memphis over the next couple of years for RPM, many of them
produced by a relative newcomer named Sam Phillips (whose Sun Records
was still a distant dream at that point in time). Phillips was
independently producing sides for both the Biharis and Chess; his
stable also included Howlin' Wolf, Rosco Gordon, and fellow WDIA
personality Rufus Thomas.
The Biharis also recorded some of King's early output themselves,
erecting portable recording equipment wherever they could locate a
suitable facility. King's first national R&B chart-topper in 1951,
Three O'Clock Blues (previously waxed by Lowell Fulson), was cut at a
Memphis YMCA. King's Memphis running partners included vocalist Bobby
Bland, drummer Earl Forest, and ballad-singing pianist Johnny Ace. When
King hit the road to promote Three O'Clock Blues, he handed the
group, known as the Beale Streeters, over to Ace.
It was during this era that King first named his beloved guitar
Lucille. Seems that while he was playing a joint in a little Arkansas
town called Twist, fisticuffs broke out between two jealous suitors
over a lady. The brawlers knocked over a kerosene-filled garbage pail
that was heating the place, setting the room ablaze. In the frantic
scramble to escape the flames, King left his guitar inside. He
foolishly ran back in to retrieve it, dodging the flames and almost
losing his life. When the smoke had cleared, King learned that the lady
who had inspired such violent passion was named Lucille. Plenty of
Lucilles have passed through his hands since; Gibson has even marketed
a B.B.-approved guitar model under the name.
The 1950s saw King establish himself as a perennially formidable
hitmaking force in the R&B field. Recording mostly in L.A. (the
WDIA air shift became impossible to maintain by 1953 due to King's
endless touring) for RPM and its successor Kent, King scored 20 chart
items during that musically tumultuous decade, including such memorable
efforts as You Know I Love You (1952); Woke Up This Morning and
Please Love Me (1953); When My Heart Beats like a Hammer, Whole
Lotta' Love, and You Upset Me Baby (1954); Every Day I Have the
Blues (another Fulson remake), the dreamy blues ballad Sneakin'
Around, and Ten Long Years (1955); Bad Luck, Sweet Little Angel,
and a Platters-like On My Word of Honor (1956); and Please Accept My
Love (first cut by Jimmy Wilson) in 1958. King's guitar attack grew
more aggressive and pointed as the decade progressed, influencing a
legion of up-and-coming axemen across the nation.
In 1960, King's impassioned two-sided revival of Joe Turner's Sweet
Sixteen became another mammoth seller, and his Got a Right to Love My
Baby and Partin' Time weren't far behind. But Kent couldn't hang
onto a star like King forever (and he may have been tired of watching
his new LPs consigned directly into the 99-cent bins on the Biharis'
cheapo Crown logo). King moved over to ABC-Paramount Records in 1962,
following the lead of Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, and before long, Fats
Domino.
In November of 1964, the guitarist cut his seminal Live at the Regal
album at the fabled Chicago theater and excitement virtually leaped out
of the grooves. That same year, he enjoyed a minor hit with How Blue
Can You Get, one of his many signature tunes. 1966's Don't Answer the
Door and Paying the Cost to Be the Boss two years later were Top Ten
R&B entries, and the socially charged and funk-tinged Why I Sing
the Blues just missed achieving the same status in 1969.
Across-the-board stardom finally arrived in 1969 for the deserving
guitarist, when he crashed the mainstream consciousness in a big way
with a stately, violin-drenched minor-key treatment of Roy Hawkins'
The Thrill Is Gone that was quite a departure from the concise
horn-powered backing King had customarily employed. At last, pop
audiences were convinced that they should get to know King better: not
only was the track a number-three R&B smash, it vaulted to the
upper reaches of the pop lists as well.
King was one of a precious few bluesmen to score hits consistently
during the 1970s, and for good reason: he wasn't afraid to experiment
with the idiom. In 1973, he ventured to Philadelphia to record a pair
of huge sellers, To Know You Is to Love You and I Like to Live the
Love, with the same silky rhythm section that powered the hits of the
Spinners and the O'Jays. In 1976, he teamed up with his old cohort
Bland to wax some well-received duets. And in 1978, he joined forces
with the jazzy Crusaders to make the gloriously funky Never Make Your
Move Too Soon and an inspiring When It All Comes Down. Occasionally,
the daring deviations veered off-course; Love Me Tender, an album that
attempted to harness the Nashville country sound, was an artistic
disaster.
Although his concerts were consistently as satisfying as anyone in the
field (and he remains a road warrior of remarkable resiliency who used
to gig an average of 300 nights a year), King tempered his studio
activities somewhat. Still, his 1993 MCA disc Blues Summit was a return
to form, as King duetted with his peers (John Lee Hooker, Etta James,
Fulson, Koko Taylor) on a program of standards. Other notable releases
include 1999's Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan and
2000's Riding With the King, a collaboration with Eric Clapton. King
celebrated his 80th birthday in 2005 with the star-studded album 80.
King's immediately recognizable guitar style, utilizing a trademark
trill that approximates the bottleneck sound shown him by cousin Bukka
White all those decades ago, has long set him apart from his
contemporaries. Add his patented pleading vocal style and you have the
most influential and innovative bluesman of the postwar period. There
can be little doubt that B.B. King will reign as the genre's undisputed
king (and goodwill ambassador) for as long as he lives. ~ Bill Dahl,
All Music Guide
Written by Bill Dahl