Credit: Kevin WestenbergBlues legend B.B. King, whose stinging licks played on his guitar nicknamed “Lucille” influenced generations of guitar players, has died at age 89, Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg confirms to ABC News.
King had been in hospice care at his home in Las Vegas after experiencing health issues last month related to diabetes.
His passing comes one week after a judge in Las Vegas rejected a guardianship claim made by several of his adult children, a ruling that allows the guitarist’s longtime business manager, Laverne Toney, to retain power-of-attorney and control of King’s medical care and finances.
King was a towering figure in the music world for more than half a century, dominating Billboard‘s R&B charts in the 1950s and early ’60s with a string of 16 top-10 singles and remaining a popular and respected artist throughout his life.
Born Riley B. King near Itta Betta, Mississippi, on September 16, 1925, the musician got his big break while performing on bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson‘s radio program on KWEM in West Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948. As his popularity grew, King got his own radio show in Memphis, where his nickname developed from Beale Street Blues Boy, to Blues Boy King, to B.B. King.
King’s biggest pop success came in 1970, when he reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Thrill Is Gone.” By the late 1960s, he’d been embraced by the rock world, and frequently performed or toured with such well-known artists at The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Peter Frampton, among many others.
King’s collaboration with U2 on “When Love Comes to Town,” from the album Rattle and Hum, peaked at #2 on the rock charts in 1988, while the 2000 album he recorded with Clapton, Riding with the King, reached #3 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than two million copies in the U.S. alone. Among King’s many other achievements: he won more than a dozen Grammy awards, was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and was honored during the 1995 Kennedy Center Honors. Recently, King’s legendary 1965 album Live at the Regal landed at #141 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Live Albums of All Time.
King was also the subject of a 2012 documentary titled B.B. King: The Life of Riley, which was narrated by Morgan Freeman and featured interviews with such stars as Clapton, The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Ringo Starr, Carlos Santana, U2’s Bono, Joe Walsh, and Slash.
Famed for years of tireless touring, King is said to have averaged more than 250 concerts a year until November 2014, when illness forced him to cancel his remaining scheduled shows that year.
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