B.B. King: A straight-talking blues guy

Billy Watkins | The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption B.B. King dies in Las Vegas at 89 Blues icon B.B. King died in Las Vegas after several recent hospital stays, his attorney announced Thursday. The 89-year-old was a 15-time Grammy Award winner and was a member of the Rock and Roll and Blues Foundation halls of fame.

JACKSON, Miss. — It didn't sound right coming from the mouth of a genius.

"I'm stupid when it comes to the guitar," B.B. King said.

I waited for the punch line.

Instead, he explained: "I don't know nothin' about no alternate tunings and all that. I guess I'm like a lot of musicians. Sometimes when I play, the guitar feels like a nerve in my nervous system, like a deep-down part of me. Then other times I'll play and I finally just set the thing in the corner and swear at it.

"I don't play nothin' like I'd like to play. There is a sound I've been searching for all these years. I don't know what it is, but I'll know when I hear it. I guess what I'm saying is, when I really learn how to play I'll let you know."

That was B.B. King: A humble, straight-talking, one-of-a-kind blues singer/musician who grew up in Kilmichael, Miss., and spent part of his teen years in Indianola, Miss.

His home state mourns, as does the rest of the world. King died Thursday in Las Vegas at the age of 89.

At last count, he had played in 90 countries, including the former Soviet Union. He won 15 Grammy Awards and was given the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. Two of his songs — Sweet Little Angel and The Thrill Is Gone — were selected among the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame's 500 songs that shaped Rock 'n' Roll.

He was a pioneer on the electric guitar. Upon hearing T-Bone Walker play, King knew the sound he was chasing wouldn't come through acoustic instruments. His first electric licks on Three O'Clock Blues in 1951 shook the blues world.

Buddy Guy, a bluesman 11 years younger than King, told Rolling Stone magazine: "Before B.B., everyone played the (electric) guitar like an acoustic."

Meaning: King was one of the first to discover how to make an electric moan and cry and beg. It would become his signature style, one that intrigued many of the artists who were part of the British Invasion in the early 1960s, such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

"Those guys from England opened the doors for a lot of (blues players)," King said. "When the British bands talked, white America listened. I'll praise those boys forever. I congratulate them on being real people."

In a September 2003 interview, King told me his love of music crossed many genres. He grew up on gospel music but became obsessed with the blues as a teenager.

King also found beauty in country music, especially the weeping sound of a steel guitar.

"Ain't nothin' in the world prettier than that," he said.

I had phoned King in 2003 to ask him about being listed the third-greatest guitarist in history by Rolling Stone — behind only Jimi Hendrix, who was No. 1, and Duane Allman.

He was stunned.

"I think they made a mistake," King said. "I mean, I would think maybe I belong in the top 50. But in the top three? I'm grateful to them, but I wouldn't have put me there."

Rolling Stone senior writer David Fricke described the decision "a no-brainer."

The magazine published another poll in 2011, allowing musicians to compile the list. Hendrix stayed at No. 1. King slipped to No. 6, Allman to No. 9.

But the article heaped high praise on King. It read: "There was a turning point, around the time of (his 1965) Live at the Regal, when his sound took on a personality that is untampered with today — this roundish tone, where the front (guitar) pickup is out of phase with the rear pickup. And B.B. still plays a Gibson amplifier that is long out of production. His sound comes from that combination. It's just B.B."

***

The larger-than-life legend who was B.B King, and the gentle man I came to know are hard to recognize as the same person.

He quarterbacked an entire genre of music for nearly seven decades, playing his custom-made Gibson affectionately nicknamed "Lucille." Icons lined up to make music with him. Among them: Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, George Harrison, Janis Joplin, U2.

He and former resident Gerald Ford received honorary degrees from Yale University on the same day.

Yet I never saw him play the star card with the media or the fans.

I think of the man who held a white handkerchief to wipe away sweat and tears in September 2008 as we sat across from one another in the brand new $15 million B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola.

He talked about earning 75 cents per day chopping cotton and 35 cents per hundred pounds picking cotton as a teenager.

"I picked 480 pounds one day," he said, an insane amount considering 200 pounds would earn a person superstar status in the steamy fields. "But I had a cousin, Birkett Davis, who could pick a bale of cotton a day. That was 900 pounds back then. And, man, we were proud of that. I still am.

"I didn't view our pay as slave wages or anything like that. That was a lot of money in those days. I loved my work, and I loved my life."

King talked about buying his first guitar at age 12, a red Stella, for $15. He bought a book that showed basic chord diagrams. He soon began playing at the corner of Church and Second Street in Indianola every Saturday afternoon.

"When I played gospel, people would pat me on the head," he said. "But when somebody asked me to play a blues song, they would also give me a tip."

I asked King — who at the time was twice divorced with 15 children, 34 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren — if there was anything he wanted that he didn't already have.

He thought for a moment, then smiled. "A beautiful woman to hold in my arms. I love women."

Then he grew quiet and wiped his eyes again. He mentioned his mother, Nora Ella King, who died when he was 9.

"I would pay $100,000 — or whatever it would take — for a picture of her," he said. "I don't even have a good picture of her in my mind. A lot of people back then thought if you let somebody take a picture of you, you were giving them your soul. Plus, taking pictures was complicated and expensive. We were country folks who didn't have a lot of money."

But there he sat, in a state-of-the-art museum bearing his name, in the town where people first heard him play music.

King said he was honored and hoped it would strike a note with youngsters.

"I want it to help people who are hungry for knowledge," King said, then leaned forward so I was sure to catch every word. "I hope you will point out that I didn't even get an education, and I have been trying to keep my nose above water ever since.

"And to the young people who don't think education is important, tell them this: My brain is like a sponge today. I'm interested in anything out there. I want to learn. Because, to be honest, I always feel sort of second-best when I am around people who went to school, who got an education.

"Please let the young people know this. Because I often wonder what would've come of me if I hadn't chosen my particular profession."

***

He came home in 2012 to Kilmichael — a town of about 680 residents in Montgomery County, Miss. — for the unveiling of King's marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Hundreds turned out. Some just wanted to get a look at him and hear him speak. Others squeezed forward when the ceremony was over to shake his hand, have a picture made with him. He honored every request on a miserably hot day.

After the ceremony, King was tired and hungry. He sent his grandson to a nearby convenience store to fetch him some pigs feet.

B.B. King remembered: star-struck, joyous, cool USA TODAY's Jerry Shriver recalls fond memories of the late guitarist and blues crooner. B.B. King was 89.

He also was visibly emotional.

"The home folks are always so good to me, no matter how far I travel. I'm not even sure what I've done to deserve all this. I guess they think I've done a little something."

A man who appeared to be in his 70s sat on the opposite end of a couch from King.

"B.B. told me he'd take me on the road with him if I promised to never take another drink," he said. "I'm still out here on the road with him."

The man said he owed King his life.

"You don't owe me anything," King said to his friend.

As Barbara Gauntt, a photographer, and I prepared to leave following our interview, King asked us to stay put for a second.

"Listen to me," he said. "Y'all be careful driving back to Jackson. I go to different places and ask about so-and-so and they tell me, 'Oh, he got killed on the highway.' I want y'all to drive carefully so I won't hear that about y'all."

After exiting the bus, we looked at each other.

"Does he realize that he is B.B. King?" I asked Gauntt.

She shook her head. "Apparently not. What a sweetheart."

As word came that King's health was rapidly declining, I began going through articles I had written about him.

I ran across this quote, which seemed the perfect one to share on this day. It was something he said that day in 2008 when he saw his name for the first time on the B.B. King Museum: "I didn't go to school long enough to be able to tell you how I feel. But I have heard that heaven is beautiful. If heaven is more beautiful than the way I feel today, I'm ready to go tomorrow."