Las Vegas kicks off B.B. King memorials

The public viewing of B.B. King’s body in Las Vegas today begins a weeklong tribute to the great blues musician, who died May 14 at age 89. Next up: A Wednesday procession on Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn., and a funeral service and burial in Indianola, Miss., home of the B.B. King Museum.

Born to Mississippi sharecroppers in 1925, Riley B. King at age 7 was already working in the field. He crafted his first guitars from cotton-bail wire knotted to a broom handle. When he heard the blues on the radio during his lunch break from driving a tractor, the music rang in his 16-year-old ears, and he wanted others to hear what he could do.

Six years later, King moved to Memphis, seeking work from a bluesman he had heard on the radio. The connection resulted in King’s run as a popular disc jockey, with the nickname “Blues Boy,” or B.B. “Three O’Clock Blues,” King’s first single, debuted in 1951 and hit the rhythm-and-blues charts. He began touring—in 1956 alone, King played 342 gigs—and he did not stop until last year, when his health deteriorated. Music gave him life.

White audiences began recognizing his work in the 1960s. When he played the Fillmore West rock venue to a sold-out, largely white, audience, King received a standing ovation following his introduction and realized his music’s reach. He influenced and performed with the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and others who helped to popularize the blues among white listeners

King always treasured his guitars. He even risked his life once, dashing into a burning venue to save the $30 guitar he had left behind. He married and divorced twice, but his Gibson ES-355 guitar “Lucille” stayed a constant love.

“I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions,” King said in his autobiography, Blues All Around Me. His raw vocals in conversation with the signature single-note vibrato he teased from Lucille reached new heights of emotion. He won 15 Grammy Awards and earned places in the Rock and Roll and Blues halls of fame, among other accolades. “I think I’ve done the best I could have done,” King said in a 2012 interview with The Guardian, “but I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done.”