1949–2005
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, King was a part of the blues scene on Beale Street. "Beale Street was where it all started for me," he said. He performed with Bobby Bland, Johnny Ace and Earl Forest in a group known as the Beale Streeters.
According to King and Joe Bihari, one of the founders of Modern Records and its subsidiaries, Ike Turner introduced King to the Bihari brothers while he was a talent scout for them. Before his RPM contract, King had debuted on Bullet Records by issuing the single "Miss Martha King" (1949), which did not chart well. "My very first recordings [in 1949] were for a company out of Nashville called Bullet, the Bullet Record Transcription company," King recalled. "I had horns that very first session. I had Phineas Newborn on piano; his father played drums, and his brother, Calvin, played guitar with me. I had Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch on tenor sax, his brother, Thomas, on trumpet, and a lady trombone player. The Newborn family were the house band at the famous Plantation Inn in West Memphis."
In 1949, King began recording songs under contract with Los Angeles-based RPM Records, a subsidiary of Modern. Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records, produced many of King's early recordings.
King assembled his band, the B.B. King Review, under the leadership of Millard Lee. The band initially consisted of native-Houston trumpet player Calvin Owens and Kenneth Sands (also trumpet), Lawrence Burdin (alto saxophone), George Coleman (tenor saxophone), Floyd Newman (baritone saxophone), Millard Lee (piano), George Joyner (bass) and Earl Forest and Ted Curry (drums). King hired Onzie Horne, a trained musician, to be an arranger and assist him with his compositions. By his admission, King could not play chords well and always relied on improvisation.
King supported his recordings by touring across the United States with performances in major theaters in cities such as Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and St. Louis, as well as numerous gigs in small clubs and juke joints in the southern United States. During one show in Twist, Arkansas, a brawl broke out between two men and caused a fire. He left the building with the rest of the crowd but ran back in to get his guitar. He said he later learned that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named the guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women, or run into any more burning buildings.
Following his first Billboard Rhythm and Blues charted number one, "3 O'Clock Blues" (February 1952), King became one of the most important names in R&B music in the 1950s, amassing an impressive list of hits including "You Know I Love You", "Woke Up This Morning", "Please Love Me", "When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer", "Whole Lotta' Love", "You Upset Me Baby", "Every Day I Have the Blues", "Sneakin' Around", "Ten Long Years", "Bad Luck", "Sweet Little Angel", "On My Word of Honor", and "Please Accept My Love". This led to a significant increase in his weekly earnings, from about $85 to $2,500, with appearances at major venues such as the Howard Theater in Washington and the Apollo in New York, as well as touring the "Chitlin' Circuit". 1956 became a record-breaking year, with 342 concerts booked and three recording sessions. That same year he founded his own record label, Blues Boys Kingdom, with headquarters at Beale Street in Memphis. There, among other projects, he was a producer for artists such as Millard Lee and Levi Seabury. In 1962, King signed to ABC-Paramount Records, which was later absorbed into MCA Records (which itself was later absorbed into Geffen Records). In November 1964, King recorded the Live at the Regal album at the Regal Theater. King later said that Regal Live "is considered by some the best recording I've ever had ... that particular day in Chicago everything came together."
From the late 1960s, his new manager, Sid Seidenberg, pushed him into a different type of venue as blues-rock performers like Eric Clapton (once a member of the Yardbirds and Cream) and Paul Butterfield were bringing blues music to appreciative white audiences. King gained further visibility among rock audiences as an opening act on the Rolling Stones' 1969 American Tour. He won a Grammy Award in 1970 for his version of the song "The Thrill Is Gone" which was a hit on both the Pop and R&B charts. Rolling Stone magazine listed it in the number 183 spot in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
King was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2004, he was awarded the international Polar Music Prize which is given to artists "in recognition of exceptional achievements in the creation and advancement of music."
From the 1980s to his death in 2015, he maintained a highly visible and active career, appearing on numerous television shows and sometimes performing 300 nights a year. In 1988, he reached a new generation of fans with the single "When Love Comes to Town", a collaborative effort with the Irish band U2 on their Rattle and Hum album. In December 1997, he performed in the Vatican's fifth annual Christmas concert and presented his trademark guitar "Lucille" to Pope John Paul II. In 1998, King appeared in The Blues Brothers 2000, playing the part of the lead singer of the Louisiana Gator Boys along with Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Koko Taylor and Bo Diddley. In 2000, he and Clapton teamed up again to record Riding With the King which won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.
Discussing where he took the Blues, from "dirt floor, smoke in the air" joints to grand concert halls, King said the Blues belonged everywhere beautiful music belonged. He successfully worked both sides of the commercial divide, with sophisticated recordings and "raw, raucous" live performances.
