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AP; NY Times; YouTube

Blues Legend B.B. King Dies at 89

May 14, 2015  •  Post A Comment

“Blues legend B.B. King has died in Las Vegas at age 89, his lawyer says,” reports the Associated Press.

The story adds, “Attorney Brent Bryson tells The Associated Press that King died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT Thursday [May 14, 2015] at his home in Las Vegas.”

“King married country blues to big-city rhythms and created a sound instantly recognizable to millions: a stinging guitar with a shimmering vibrato, notes that coiled and leapt like an animal, and a voice that groaned and bent with the weight of lust, longing and lost love,” writes Tom Weiner in an obituary in The New York Times.

The Times story adds, “ ‘I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions,’ Mr. King said in his autobiography, ‘Blues All Around Me’ (1996), written with David Ritz.”

Weiner also writes that King “was embraced by rock ’n’ roll fans of the 1960s and ’70s, who remained loyal as they grew older together. His playing influenced many of the most successful rock guitarists of the era, including Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.”

To read all of Weiner’s obituary, please click here.

Here, from a performance we found on YouTube, is B.B. King singing one of his classics, “Three O’clock Blues”:

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