The Thrill is Gone

[head_spaz]

R.I.P. B.B.
We all have the blues now.

[GibsonGM]

What an awesome life...as a player and as a person. 
Another one goes into history! 

Thanks, BB. RIP    

[Mark Hammer]

I have to laugh.  I got to see him in 1970, and at that point, he was considered legendary, after a "lengthy" career.  And that was damn near 45 year ago!  Realistically, I actually saw him early in his career.

But baby, what a career!

Admit it: the very first time you were able to nail a BB riff, you thought to yourself "Hey, I'm not too bad a player!".  And the first time you were able to work in a couple of his riffs to a solo, you thought "I'm a pretty damn good player".

One of the things I will always remember about him was in an interview for Guitar Player some decades back, in which he told the interviewer that one of the cassettes he brought along to listen to on the tour bus was an album of Django Reinhardt.  He had tried to lift some of Django's riffs, but freely admitted that his fingers weren't nimble enough.  Now that's what I call humility.

We'll always remember you.

BTW, I don't think he EVER used a pedal.

[Frank_NH]

As a guitar player, the expression BB has in the top photo from the OP is what I always hope to achieve when I'm playing (eyes closed, smiling, thinking about the music...).  RIP B.B. King.  You will be missed.

[Transmogrifox]

I saw BB in 2004.  He had some hot jazz guitar player in his line-up at the time who, if we were talking about heavy metal, could shred.  I don't know what you call shredding when it's jazz.

BB let this guy go wild for a bit then stood back in awe with an expression like, "how do I follow that act"?  But when BB played the first note of his solo, it really meant something.  The first 150 ms of that note had more in it than the last 10 minutes of this other guy's display of truly stunning technical abilities.  From then on it was like the entire atmosphere of the place changed.  You knew the king of blues was in the house.

I see the same thing at play with a local blues band in my area.  The lead guitar player has the rhythm guy beat in the realm of finger gymnastics, but when the rhythm guy gets a chance to come forward....he really plays the blues. 

BTW, I don't think he EVER used a pedal.

He could have brought down the house with a cigar-box guitar and a microphone.

[graylensman]

For some years, I had a part-time job with a catering company. One night, about six or seven years ago, we catered a special concert BB put on for a local "guest speaker" program. We got to stand in the wings off-stage for the show. We didn't see much but heard everything. The band was great - literally played non-stop for over an hour. The band would vamp on a blues jam, BB would spin out a tale of being a poor sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, sing a song about it... and then, when he played Lucille, the heavens opened and the angels sang. Amazing. Like Transmogrifox says, one note from BB contained so much feeling.