Blues legend B.B. King dead after decades of inspiration

Blues giant, Riley B. King died Thursday after decades of performing and touring.

Known as B.B. King, the blues legend held fast to a rigorous touring schedule well into his 80s and was the recipient of 15 Grammy Awards along the way.

The man who has been crowned the “King of The Blues” reigned over the genre and mainstream music for more than six decades and held his throne through the change of the century.

Toward the end of his life, King maintained a ruthless touring schedule and had been awarded for his persistence with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, among others.

King started to slow down last year after a bad show in St. Louis and the cancellation of the remainder of his tour in October after a bout of dehydration at a Chicago show. After the show in St. Louis, King’s representation issued an apology for “a show that did not match Mr. King’s standard of excellence.”

King was later hospitalized for dehydration in April in Las Vegas, far from his roots in Mississippi.

Born in 1925 on a cotton plantation, King grew up singing with church choirs and learning basic guitar chords from his uncle, a preacher at the time.

In his younger years, King performed for change on street corners and noted that he made more in one night on the street than he did in a week in the cotton fields. A selfless man, King enlisted to fight during World War II but never served because his ability to drive a field tractor was deemed an essential home front occupation.

After the war, King hitchhiked to Memphis where he soon adopted the name, B.B. King, as a disc jockey (DJ) for Memphis radio station, WDIA. As his reputation as a DJ and as a live performer grew, King received notable attention, and in 1949 put out his first recordings, "Miss Martha King/Take a Swing with Me" and "How Do You Feel When Your Baby Packs Up and Goes/I've Got the Blues."

King got his first hit in 1951 with the release of “Three O’Clock Blues,” which topped the charts for four months.

In the following decades, King reached a total of 30 Grammy nominations and despite losing a bit of his commercial sound, remained at the top of the game for years. King continued to win Grammy’s well into the new decade, with his last coming in 2009 for Best Traditional Blues Album with his release of “One Kind Favor” in 2006.

King’s legacy now lives on in the influence he had on artists, from Eric Clapton to John Mayer, and in blues lovers across the world. In a tweet early Friday morning, The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr thanked King and said, “God bless BB King, peace and love to his family.”