BB King Autobiography... By Cameron Coleman
Riley B. King was born to a family of poor sharecroppers on a plantation near the small town of Itta Bena in the Mississippi Delta. King's parents separated when he was only five and his mother took him to live in the nearby hill country in Kilmichael, Mississippi. By age seven he was doing the work of a grown man in the field. He was only nine when his mother died.
He found inspiration in the music of the African American church. He dreamed of becoming a gospel singer and learned the rudiments of guitar from his preacher. He arranged with his employer to acquire his first guitar and taught himself further with mail-order instruction books.
In his teens, he dropped out of school and returned to the Delta, where he drove a tractor on a large plantation. On his off hours, he sang for small change on street corners in the nearby towns, sometimes visiting as many as four towns in a single evening. He also joined small gospel groups and urged the other singers to join him in leaving the plantation life for the opportunities of the city. In the end, he made the …show more content…
B.B. King was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987, and collected awards and honorary doctorates from the University of Mississippi, Yale University and Berklee College of Music. In 1988 he recorded a track with Irish rockers U2, "When Love Comes to Town," for their album Rattle and Hum. The hit record and associated concert film introduced King to a whole new generation of music
Riley B. King was born to a family of poor sharecroppers on a plantation near the small town of Itta Bena in the Mississippi Delta. King's parents separated when he was only five and his mother took him to live in the nearby hill country in Kilmichael, Mississippi. By age seven he was doing the work of a grown man in the field. He was only nine when his mother died.
He found inspiration in the music of the African American church. He dreamed of becoming a gospel singer and learned the rudiments of guitar from his preacher. He arranged with his employer to acquire his first guitar and taught himself further with mail-order instruction books.
In his teens, he dropped out of school and returned to the Delta, where he drove a tractor on a large plantation. On his off hours, he sang for small change on street corners in the nearby towns, sometimes visiting as many as four towns in a single evening. He also joined small gospel groups and urged the other singers to join him in leaving the plantation life for the opportunities of the city. In the end, he made the …show more content…
B.B. King was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987, and collected awards and honorary doctorates from the University of Mississippi, Yale University and Berklee College of Music. In 1988 he recorded a track with Irish rockers U2, "When Love Comes to Town," for their album Rattle and Hum. The hit record and associated concert film introduced King to a whole new generation of music