Conversations: B.B. King
An interview with the 'King of the Blues' about his career and musicians he admired
Thirty-two years ago, on a stiflingly humid afternoon in Houston, I spent an hour talking to B.B. King. Fortunately, we were inside the entire time.
The 65-year-old blues legend was dressed impeccably in a light suit that matched the promotional photos a Benson & Hedges representative handed me when I met in her in the lobby. It was one of those afternoons where my body’s internal sprinkler system had gone into hyperdrive as I walked from the parking lot into the hotel, and King took note of it.
“It’s hot out there,” King said as he welcomed me to his suite at Inn on the Park. “Can’t imagine being outside right now. No thank you.”
As he sat in a recliner, I recognized I was in a room with a giant — both physically as well as musically. By this point, King was in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, having been selected as part of its second class in 1987. Earlier in 1991, he had been honored as a “living national treasure” by the National Endowment of the Arts and had won the fifth of his 15 Grammy Awards for the album “Live at San Quentin.”
But on this day, he was promoting the Benson & Hedges sponsored tour, a rotating cast of musicians that included John Lee Hooker, Etta James, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Johnny Winter.
The majority of our conversation was around blues music. We also talked about fellow musicians he admired — Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt, Charles Brown, Elvis Presley, among others. Here are some highlights:
On his first recordings, which were produced by Sam Phillips (the founder of Sun Records) after King moved from Mississippi to Memphis in the late 1940s: "It's sort of funny, but to us (recording) was great because we had never done anything before. When I look back at it now, if a guy was recording and you were having dinner and all of a sudden a fork dropped, everybody had to go back and do the whole thing over.
“Several of my so-called hit tunes of that time were done in a house. And one was done at a YMCA. That was my first hit record, called “Three O'clock Blues.” We recorded it in a YMCA. We took blankets and piled them on the sides of the walls and stuff like that to keep the other sounds out."
On Elvis, who King met in the mid 1950s in Memphis and who has been accused by some musicians of culturally appropriating black music: “If you ask anyone, and if they are honest with you and have been around long enough to know, they'll thank Elvis for what he did. He didn’t steal anyone’s music. He showed his love for all people, everyone. Elvis influenced everybody's music and it was for the good of all of us.”
King said Presley ignored Memphis’ segregation ordinances by attending “Colored Night” at the local fairgrounds. In 1956, Presley attended and supported a fundraiser for “needy Negro children” in Memphis that was sponsored by WDIA, a black radio station.
“This was 1956 and he was already a big star. That took guts,” said King, who later wrote in his 1996 autobiography that Presley “treated me like royalty” that night. “Here he was telling people that I was one of his influences. I don’t think that was true, but it was nice to hear him say it.”
On working with U2 on the hit single "When Love Comes to Town.": "I'm not afraid to learn from anybody," King said of the song, which was recorded at Sun Studios in 1988 as part part of the band’s underrated “Rattle and Hum” album and documentary. "On the thing with Bono, I first thought he was writing that song just for me, but i later found out that he wrote it for us as a duet. That was fun."
On Raitt, whose 1990 album “Nick of Time” was part of a commercial resurgence for blues music:"That's my dear friend. She's so popular. She's so nice. And she's one of the greatest slide guitar players I've ever heard. In fact, today, in my book, she's one of the best living slide guitar players, and I'm not talking about men or women, just one of the best ever. I really admire her."
On Charles Brown, the blues pianist who grew up in Texas City and was enjoying a rejuvenated career thanks to the support of Raitt and others: "Any black person from my time would know Charles Brown. "He made a tune that's sort of like Bing Crosby's ‘White Christmas’ or Nat (King) Cole's 'Christmas Song.' To every black person, 'Merry Christmas, Baby' is just as important as 'White Christmas' is to a white person.
"And Charles is one of the guys that we in the blues are proud of because he went to college. Most of us didn't. “We were all jealous of him because he went to college,” King said. “He had so many more options than the rest of us.”
On Vaughan, who had died the previous year in a helicopter crash at age 35: “We were very close. Very, very close. I loved the guy. He used to call me when he had problems and we talked. He never played anything else but the blues. He loved to be called a blues player, which I loved him for because he was.”
On the new life his older songs had taken on in the CD era: "I think we did some very good stuff back then that wasn't exposed to the media that much. We just did the songs and there they were. There are things I did that I didn't pay much attention to that others are coming up and showing to me now."
Blues and Cigarettes
King was never negative, bristling only twice during the interview. The first time was when I asked about the “resurgence” of the blues — a term used frequently about the genre at the time. Given this interview is more than 30 years old, some context is necessary.
At the time, blues music had become hot again, thanks to artists such as Vaughan, Raitt, Robert Cray and Jeff Healy. The previous year, a box set featuring the recordings of Robert Johnson — the “King of the Delta Blues” who had died in 1938 under mysterious circumstances at age 27 — sold more than a half million copies.
"The reason I have a little problem with that word is because the blues is more popular today than since I've been around," King said. "I've been here 65 years, and it's never been this popular before.”
He continued: "I guess the reason people use the word resurgence is because they think in terms of many of the superstars, the rock stars like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck doing the blues in the 1960s. But they were still rock stars. They were not blues stars. They just played the blues and helped make them popular, and I'm very proud they did.”
The second time he chafed was when I asked about Benson & Hedges’ sponsorship of the festival. At the time, corporate sponsorship of concerts and tours was in its relative infancy, prompting a fierce artist vs. commerce debate that is nowhere to be found today. And even though this was several years before the federal government launched its lawsuits against Big Tobacco, cigarette manufacturers were coming under increased criticism for using concerts as a way to draw in new smokers.
King, who by this point had headlined shows for Benson & Hedges since 1988, took the pragmatic approach.
"I love it," said King. "If it weren't for them a whole lot of business would never get going. So thank God. Bless them. We need to have them. What they are doing no one person would be able to do. When you have a reputable company that has done this much and put their name behind something like this, it makes it credible.
"I tell people in this business that what I do may not mean much, but what I say I will do, I will do. That's credibility."
There would be many more hits and accolades for King over the next two plus decades until his death, including the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.
For another decade, he would sometimes play as many as 300 nights a year, continuing a relentless schedule throughout his 70s. In 2000, he teamed up with Clapton on the Grammy Award winning album “Riding With the King,” the title cut coming from a John Hiatt song. (Hiatt has quipped that the success of the album put his daughter through college.)
On that humid day 32 years ago, King sat in his air-conditioned suite and told me about the keys to his success: Hard work, honesty, loyalty and gratitude.
"I always have worked with a handshake. My word is good. I am loyal to the people who work for me and they are loyal to me. And it's been like that for 41 years. It's hard to believe, but it's true," he said. “How lucky I am to be alive at this time. What else can I say? I'm very happy to be here, that's all."