Three Kings – BB King Card

Three Kings Series – BB King Playing Card, hand-drawn of BB playing his Gibson ES-355TD double cutaway, circa 1969. Part of the Three Kings Series portraits of Albert King, BB King and Freddie King Playing Cards.
The Gibson ES-355TD guitar (ES standing for Electric Spanish, and TD Thinline Double cutaway) came with the addition of Stereo output and six-position Varitone (SV).

Riley B. King, known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer.
As a young man, he worked at WDIA in Memphis as a singer and disc jockey, where he was given the nickname “Beale Street Blues Boy”, later shortened to “Blues Boy”, and finally to B.B.
He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players.

King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and is one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname “The King of the Blues”, and is considered one of the “Three Kings of the Blues Guitar” (along with Albert King and Freddie King, none of whom are related).
King performed tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing on average at more than 200 concerts per year into his 70s.
In 1956 alone, he appeared at 342 shows.

In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas.
The hall was heated by a barrel half-filled with burning kerosene set in the middle of the dance floor, a fairly common practice at the time.
During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the barrel and sending the burning fuel across the floor. The hall burst into flames and was evacuated.

Once outside however, King realized that he had left his guitar inside so he went back into the burning building to retrieve his beloved $30 Gibson guitar.
King learned the next day that the two men that started the fire had been fighting over a woman who worked at the hall named Lucille.
King did not know Lucille but named that guitar, and every guitar he subsequently owned, Lucille, as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over a woman.

His top 2 iconic hits: “The Thrill Is Gone”and “Lucille”.

King died in his sleep from vascular dementia caused by a series of small strokes as a consequence of his type 2 diabetes, at the age of 89 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 14, 2015.

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