September 16, 2025, marks one hundred years since King’s birth, and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone matching the mark that he left. Born on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, he went on to make more than fifty albums, to be honored by presidents and popes and kings, to perform in far-flung corners of the planet. Along the way, King’s storytelling power as a vocalist and searing, fluid guitar style transformed not only the direction of the blues, but also the work of rock’s biggest stars.

“Before B.B., everyone played the guitar like it was an acoustic,” Buddy Guy once said. “Every electric guitarist you listen to, there’s a little bit of B.B. in there.”

In his youth, Riley King played on street corners for dimes, sometimes covering as many as four towns in a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis to pursue his dream of a music career, staying with his cousin, the bluesman Bukka White. He met Sonny Boy Williamson, who invited King to fill in on a local radio station. King soon found a regular slot on WDIA, a Black-operated station, where he became known as the Beale Street Blues Boy, or “B.B.” for short.

Absorbing a wide range of music from T-Bone Walker to Louis Jordan to Django Reinhardt, King was developing his own unique guitar style, full of fire and precision. In 1951, his single “Three O’ Clock Blues” topped the R&B charts. He began touring nationally—playing an astounding 342 nights in 1956—and became renowned as an incomparable performer, as captured on a series of live albums including 1965’s immortal Live at the Regal.

By the later 1960s, King was conquering a rock and pop audience, playing the Newport Folk Festival and the Fillmore West and opening for a Rolling Stones tour. The force and economy of his instrumental work, characterized by immaculate string-bending and a stinging vibrato, was a model for the likes of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Jeff Beck. Drawing from jazz, country, and pop, King created a deep catalog of classic songs—“How Blue Can You Get,” “Payin’ The Cost To Be The Boss,” “Every Day I Have The Blues”—and 1970’s “The Thrill is Gone” went Top 20 on the pop charts. In 1988, “When Loves Comes to Town,” his collaboration with U2, introduced him to yet another generation of listeners.