When B. B. King took the stage at the Harlem Cultural Festival in the summer of 1969, the M.C. introduced him as “the world’s greatest blues singer,” a moment captured in the recent Questlove documentary, Summer of Soul. That was how much of the Black community regarded Riley “B. B.” King, from his ascent to the top of the R&B charts in the 1950s until well after his embrace by younger white musicians and fans in the late 1960s: as a great singer, first and foremost.
White fans, by contrast, recognized King primarily as a guitarist, one of the greatest ever to bend a string. In my new biography of B. B. King, King of the Blues, I argue that he almost singlehandedly codified and popularized a lyrical style of solo guitar that would suffuse popular music until the end of the 20th century and beyond.
