Monday, 13 September 2010

Symbols and the Blues: Who is BB King?

As is probably reasonably clear by now, I listen to a lot of Blues music. In fact, since I started playing guitar a few years ago, it's become a major part of my life. As such, it was probably only so long before a drunken conversation about music led me to make the following, rather audacious statement: “After BB King is gone, there will be noone that is able to play like he was.”

Sweeping, perhaps, but even after my hangover has cleared, I'm pretty ready to attempt to back it up. For lovers of the blues, even those that don't consider BB King 'up there', he is considered a physical and metaphorical monument to both blues music, and its traditional subject matter. Moreover, he is perhaps blues music's No.1 ambassador, still performing innumerable dates as he reaches the ripe old age of 85 or so. In terms of recognisability, many will have a familiarity that at least extends to his name and his famous guitar, Lucille, if not the depths of the music itself.

So who, or just as importantly what, is BB King? To back up such a statement makes it necessary that there is some unique quality that is BB King, that makes him unlike others before or since. It is this quality, rather than the name, that makes the venerable Mr. King inimitable, and although I can only attempt to back this up on my own terms, it'd be interesting to see how others perceive the other great icons of music and stage – Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra etc., to understand what makes that particular person a monument, a symbol in lives across the world.

Personally, I'm inclined to argue that it is, above all, his persistence that has made its mark on my understanding of blues music. While blues has remained a relatively static form over the years, young 'uns such as myself approaching the guitar for the first time might still be overwhelmed by the variety on offer, from Robert Johnson through to Joe Bonnamassa. Moreover, it is unlikely to be an original choice, with many fledgling players being pushed toward the blues as a basis for further development. King's persistence, from the post Muddy Waters days through to the present, combined with his undenied authority over the form, present a kind of anchor in a calm, but vast sea of opportunities.

The persistence occurs in other forms too. While it is increasingly popular to name particular chords or styles after artists, such as the famous Hendrix Chord, King was one of the earliest to receive the accolade, with people dubbing the upper registers of the second-position minor pentatonic 'the BB King box'. With 5 notes, it's both easy to navigate, to experiment with, and to expand. Upon picking up my first electric guitar (a 335 style archtop, of course), my acoustic-trained fingers skipped straight to the BB King box as a way of trying out that style as soon as possible. It isn't uncommon to hear the claim that you can tell BB King from other blues artists by an average playing length of 3 or 4 notes, and while this may be true for others, such as Clapton's 'woman tone', the BB King sound has been drilled into us far more thoroughly. It's also relatively easy to reach, using a minimum of effects wizardry. All of these things should, technically, make BB King's music easier to play. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While searching for ways to start absorbing blues music, I came across several mentions of a BB King album named 'Live at the Regal'. The recommendation wasn't a low level one either – both John Mayer and Eric Clapton claim to listen to 'Live...' before performances in order to set the atmosphere of their own stagework. Perhaps as expected, 'Live...' is a masterclass of blues guitar, incorporating the fluid bends and impossibly nuanced vibrato one has come to expect. More than that though, it demonstrates King's rapport with the audience, demonstrating the way that he clicks with their worldview through conversations between songs, as well as the music's subject matter. His presence on stage may have transformed between 'Live...' and his current status as Blues' elder statesman, but that rapport hasn't disappeared just yet, and I very much doubt it will disappear over the course of his latter years.

It may be possible, some day, that someone comes along who can play like BB King. Indeed, enough guitarists have taken and perfected his technique, and it is probably only the purists that can claim to hear the difference. But in claiming that someone can be BB King, we are overstating the importance of the music, and ignoring the fact that to many blues players across the last 50 or so years, including myself, he remains a person who in his manner rather than his performance, has developed a form of Grandfather relationship that extends far beyond the music.

While this is a brief piece, I hope it explains my reasoning, and I hope you go and buy a copy of 'Live at the Regal' for yourself. Listen to it on a good pair of headphones in the dark before taking to the stage yourself, and if I'm in the audience, you can come up to me afterwards and tell me that noone, in the past or present, will ever replace BB King.

Long Live the King.

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