Bastion of the Blues

The majestic black king of the indestructible bastion of the blues, erected in a time when there was nothing.

And in the absolutely impenetrable, bottomless darkness there was only the sound of a trembling string and hot air vibrating in time with it.

He grew up in extreme poverty.

And if Elvis had a chance to become "different", breaking out of the white rabble, BB King did not have such at all - he was born in the most excellent place for this case, in the state of Mississippi, not far from the town of Itta Bena.

September 16, 1925.

In the most brutal times of blooming, riotous racial segregation.

In that world, everything was either for whites or for blacks.

His parents split up when he was only four.

With his mother and grandmother, little Riley moved to what was called a city, and his life was not easy.

Cotton.

He picked white cotton with his quick black hands.

Damn white cotton of tenant farmers who were not so much farmers as new slaves without rights and with a heap of countless duties on their hunched backs.

At nine years old, Mom will leave Riley forever.

But he will keep it in his memory.

He will remember her throughout his long life.

He will say one day: “It was only in the church that I felt good then ... There was silence, and warmth, and peace.

But even the church could not fill the emptiness of my loss ... "

And his grandmother will bring him up.

And of course he will sing in the church choir.

The pastor of the beloved grandmother's church, the Reverend Archie Fair, knew how to convey to the flock the word of God less with words, but more with music.

He sang well himself, accompanying himself on the guitar, and was excellent at handling a motley church choir.

King was delighted with both the singing and the pastor's guitar.

And he showed him how to properly hold it in his hands, and taught the basic chords.

In addition, Fair learned gospel music with him, happily singing along to the child, spitting on those who wanted to fear the public and who knew how to charm the audience in less than a minute.

This early skill - to instantly establish a connection with the audience, but not to her needs, but making his way to her very heart, King will owe a lot to the coming universal popularity.

Sometime in the seventies, King said between times: “You know ... To play and sing the blues, you don't have to grow up on cotton plantations.

But it certainly helps a lot. "

He did not need to learn to "play the blues" - he surrounded him from birth and sounded everywhere.

How strange fate deals its cards.

In 1940, when his grandmother leaves and King is left all alone, he will be sheltered by the family of a white tenant farmer.

The same beggar as himself, but with a light in his soul.

And with a tractor in the garden.

Flake Cartledge (we know the farmer's name) will approve of his worker's musical aspirations and lend $ 2.50 to buy his first, albeit not entirely new, guitar.

In November 1944, Riley gets married.

In 1946 he left for Memphis for the first time.

With two dollars and fifty cents in his pocket.

And she'll be on Bill Street.

Like Elvis.

Only earlier.

And he will record his first disc, and will play at bus stops and in pubs.

He will go out of his way to break through the wall with his head.

He can do it.

But not the first time.

And for the first time lucky, and really, with a great uncle, Bucca White.

The most famous guitarist in the blues world.

He will be studying with Riley for a good ten months in a row, teaching him the skill of the game.

From these lessons, King will take almost nothing - he will have his own way of communicating with the guitar.

And he will return to Indianola.

Of course, in Memphis he missed his wife and, perhaps, the hated white cotton ...

By the end of the 1948 season, Riley King has accumulated a little money and a lot of ambition.

And he will leave for Memphis a second time, never to return to his old roots.

Having distributed small debts, kissed his beloved wife and stepped into the Abyss of the future.

Strange ...

Sam Phillips, the one who discovered Elvis and other southern kings of rock and roll, will also take part in his first recordings.

It was as if a smiling, courteous person, the owner of the Sun studio, was gifted with the ability to discern indistinct, dawning light in impenetrable darkness.

Electric guitar.

Throughout his life, he will be assisted by a guitar pierced by the electric current of his voice.

When in 1949, at the dawn of his musical career, T-Bone Walker, the guitarist of the first, heard the play of BB King, he said: “Now I understand how much I need an electric guitar myself.

Needed, even if for this you have to steal it! "

Then everything will be both fast and slow.

King will become BB King.

Resoundingly.

Weighty.

Solid.

Even too much.

But really, too, in his life there will be music and concerts - an average of 300 per year.

There will be very little left for home and family.

And therefore, his beloved wife will file for divorce herself, in 1952, when he is on the road ...

From the separation, his blues will become fluid and endlessly smooth.

The bitterness of wild honey, the bright tears of early wisdom, the light that both his mother and grandmother left him as a legacy will appear in him.

Its poor and honest guardian angels.

In the 1980s, he would be asked a lot about spirituality.

Really ?!

Time to forgive and receive the gifts of forgiveness!

Vietnam is behind!

The moon is behind us!

He will answer with invariably restrained, invariably calm, with the dignity of true kings: “You know ... As for spirituality, and in general ... I cannot remember someone with whom I would mistreat.

I always thought and remembered that I was my brother's keeper.

And I believe that there is a Great Spirit who truly cares for all of us.

That's all..."

Possessing an exceptionally docile and benevolent character, with the stubbornness of the doomed, he will not get involved in any dubious stories, so that reporters will get little from him for their daily bread.

And he will not have time for scandals: a man of exceptional diligence, he will give at least 250 concerts from year to year.

In America he will be called the Warrior of the Road.

But in reality, he will always be the Warrior of the Path.

A warrior of the path to the Light.

To what we all call Happiness, without hesitation releasing it, Happiness, from our own hands.

BB King will be quite ironic about his lifestyle, assuring that the number of concerts is extremely simple to explain - it just so happens that his audience is his employer.

Do not come to work once or twice, you look, and you will be fired.

They'll be fired.

BB King.

He has 15 thousand concerts, more than a hundred discs, an uncountable army of fans.

He ruled the scene for almost 70 years.

And he always sang only about love.

It is thanks to him that we know and feel the blues as the highest pinnacle of vocal and instrumental art.

As a symbol of direct speech addressed to God.

Like a sword that cuts off the vulgarity of the superfluous from the days we have lived.

To the gallery page

Being no longer even at its zenith, in the absolute space of its power, BB King will undertake the recording of an album of monstrous penetrating power.

It would seem to create from nothing, from a clot of antimatter, a new "Nautilus", a new Blues Summit, designed to break through the ice of the senseless crackle of the radio air with its steel ram.

It will be written in Memphis and Berkeley.

In Memphis from February 15 to 19, and in Berkeley from March 8 to 12, 1993.

He will invite both friends and girlfriends.

Together with him will sing the greatest queens of the blues - Katie Webster, Coco Taylor, Etta James, Irma Thomas and Ruth Brown.

Perhaps, in memory of those times when women protected him from the horrors of the south, or perhaps in memory of the fact that everything will eventually pass, but what is sung with the heart will sound forever.

Yes, all the years allotted to him by the Creator, BB King performed a great mission, bringing the blues to the masses, who hitherto were not painfully interested in them and did not understand much in general about black music.

Yes.

He with violent force again and again urged us not to commit violence, not to wave fists for love, but to simply and honestly love.

And life, and his neighbor.

Do you hear?

It is he who says: “There are a lot of things available to other people that I do not know how to do.

I don't know how at all!

By and large, the only thing I can do very well is to be B.B. King! "

I'm lucky.

I saw him on stage in 1994.

Not even in a minute, in an instant he switched the whole hall to himself, and I cannot remember what and how it was exactly.

How he signed the album for me.

Laughing and not wanting to give back the pen ... which still lies on the shelf next to his disks.

He returned the pen to me.

Do you understand?

Because it's magic.

The magic and magic of the blues.

He gave me back my three-kopeck pen.

In the stunning simplicity of attitude to oneself and one's glory, in simplicity, perhaps unthinkable for many and many, madly striving upward, there is hidden a small grain from which both he and his gift grew.

This seed is faith.

“You know ... I do remember ... At the time when I went to church with my mother, the pastor helped me feel as if I was special.

As if I am extraordinary.

He made me understand that I can personally receive a message from God.

And I truly believe that all musical talents come from God to express the beauty of our emotions.

I believe that God created everything in the world.

I am delighted with His creation: forests, oceans and the sky that surround us.

I believe: God created us too.

But our nature is not always godlike. "

The famous guitarist Coco Montoya told how in 1993 King came to the house of Albert Collins, who was dying of cancer, came on his last day, sat at the head of his bed and held his hand to the very end, talking with him ...

Sometimes Collins would open his eyes and King would ask, "Do you recognize me, brother?"

- and Collins shook his head.

Just six months ago, they played together on the Blues Summit album ...

BB King saw the arrival of the first.

He saw them leave as well.

And he was almost the last of the first to leave the earth himself.

Many young guitarists, from Robert Cray to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, have received support from him at various times and have readily sought wise advice.

And we can say without exaggeration that King became not only the King, but also the real father of modern blues.

Perhaps, the black musical culture, which became the common good of the world thanks to BB King, simply did not know another such phenomenon.

Time is not that ruthless.

It is rather impartial.

And that's the whole point.

His queens were once slender, cheerful girls who turned the whole world on ... He was also asked about them.

He laughed and answered invariably: “You know! .. I will say so.

There is nothing more beautiful than girls.

If not for them, perhaps I would not have come to this land.

There is, of course, also music, my music, but girls always come first. "

Great joker.

And a great wizard.

A kind and glorious man with a guitar imbued with an electric current of love.

Old BB.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.