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BB King |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 230
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BB King
Despite saying a couple of years ago that he was retiring from international touring for good, blues legend B B King will be playing four stadium gigs in the UK this summer.
Anyone seen him before? I have heard he is great live
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#2 |
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Dark Side of The Moon
Posts: 872
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no but I would love to see him
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#3 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
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BB is the elder statesman of American blues- Muddy Waters may have had the original electric blues sound and John Lee Hooker may have a more authentic country feel to his music, but BB KIng is the grand-daddy of popular blues.
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#4 |
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Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: West London
Posts: 24,325
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He was great on the BBC's documentary series The Story of the Guitar. He was very humble - said he didn't really know how to play the guitar! - and just seemed an all-round good guy. Saw him about twenty years ago when he was playing quite middle-of-the-road soul/blues and his guitar playing wasn't as raw as when he was in his prime but I'm sure he's still a great showman.
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#5 |
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
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one of the things that impresses people about BB is the way that he can leave it until the last possible moment before playing the note - it has a sharp attack, so it feels like he has squeezed the note out - that he has to coax and chivvy the guitar into playing - but that once it gets going, the notes then just pour out. I find it difficult to articulate exactly what I mean, because I haven't had formal training, but there is a tension as well as a flow - a bit like Clapton in some of Cream songs, who studied the likes of King, Lightning Hopkins etc to get his sound.
I sometimes thought that Clapton was over-rated, but hearing the respect that the American blues players have for him, I relented and decided that if he was good enough/authentic enough for them, just because he came from the Wey Delta rather than the Mississippi, that shouldn't invalidate his contribution. BB said in a documentary I have that if it hadn't been for the likes of EC, the Stones and the Beatles, white Americans would not have heard them and black Americans wouldn't have been as proud of the blues as a music form. I find it amazing to think that even in the 1960s America was so segregated that one of their most original musical forms was such a minority interest. |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: By the Sea
Posts: 24,199
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I saw him live 22 years ago at the Albert Hall - he was brilliant
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#7 |
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
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Quote:
I saw him live 22 years ago at the Albert Hall - he was brilliant
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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 230
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Quote:
I saw him live 22 years ago at the Albert Hall - he was brilliant
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