On Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:01:46 +0000,
savoybg@aol.com (Bruce) wrote:
Hey Jim, people say that BB King was a great guitarist. To me he was
great at just one thing, playing lead guitar on his own records and the
way he bent the strings to get that sound.
I don't think he even knew how to play chords or play much else aside
from his own leads on his material. I don't think he was a very skilled >guitarist in terms of being able to pick it up and start playing an >instrumental version of some popular song, let's say "Never My Love" or
"Mrs. Robinson."
What do you say?
The Juke Jumpers had to follow B.B. King's Show in Belgium at the
Belgium R&B Festival in 1989. Beside the point, I realize, but I was
that close to him.
B.B. King has been highly influential on every white blues gutarist
I've known in Texas and I've known a few pretty wekk. Also the other
gutair players i've met and worked as well.They all think to a man
that B.B. is a most unique player. He may not sound like a high
technique player but every note he played was pure, clean and
umistakeably identifiable with his own style. he stuck to licks and
leads solos. I think in his later days he got less inventive and stuck
to certain licks because he was aging and I know what that's like! but
he still had that sound. His early reocrds show his absolute talent
the best. But he was definitely a force with white players especailly.
It seemed that most of the black guys had more T-Bone going on but
they were usually the older generation. You can't say he was an all
around comprhensive guitar player. Few guys that are strickly blues
players usually aren't. But B.B. was absolutley one of the great blues guiarists of the 20th century.
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