B. B. King has died at the age of eighty-nine. It really feels like the end of something. The New York Times has an obituary.
[Live at the Regal (1965) is a good place to start.]
Friday, May 15, 2015
B. B. King (1925–2015)
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comments: 3
It is the end of an era in American music. I'm so sorry to read of his death, but grateful for the music and influence he left behind; glad I was alive and listening when he was making history.
Live at the Regal is the best place to start. I first began to be aware of B.B.'s special powers when I took up the guitar as a spotty white boy of eighteen. He was one of the first to show me how the Black experience in America, for all its harrowing and oppressive features, could yield transcendent beauty. Thanks, B.B. I'm a better person for having known your music.
I didn’t want to sound too authoritative — my knowledge of electric blues is spotty. But okay, yes, it is the best place to start, an incredibly exciting album. “I gave you seven children, and now you want to give them”: how blue can a human subject get?
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