Sad to see that B.B. King has passed away. He is a legend and will definitely be missed. I 'm even more sad to say that he has a spot here in Nashville called B.B.'s where he played frequently , but I never made it out to see him ....
I really loved that guy so much. I loved his music and I love what he did more than anything. When I first started getting into the blues I bought his complete MCA recordings on CD box and basically got into the blues that way. With starting with him, I started at the top, because he was the top of his game. So many other blues men even though they tried to copy his style of playing never even came close to touching his sound.
I think he was the hardest working man in showbiz, not James Brown, I think this guy put in 10x more miles and more time and he loved it so much. He loved being on the road and he loved to play for people. They basically had to talk him into not touring any more when he started to fail, but he still could play.
I saw him about 8 years ago live in Madison Blues fest. He was the headliner of an insanely great roster of blues legends. At the end of the night he came on and put all of them to shame. He blew them all out of the water in terms of funky fun entertaining blues.
I'll never forget he started out standing in the beginning of the show and after about 10 minutes of rocking he stopped the show in the middle of a set and said "Now I'm old but I can still rock from this stool" and as soon as he sat on the stool he motioned the band behind them and wammo started strumming Lucile again. He rocked so hard, I've got nothing but mad respect for that guy. RIP BB King.
