B.B. King 1925-2015
B.B. King, Newport Folk Festival, 1968. Copyright © Dick Waterman. All Rights Reserved.
This photograph by Dick Waterman is my favorite of B.B. King. It was my good fortune to see B.B. King at the Cellar Door on 34th Street in Georgetown three nights in a row in March 1969. It was just B.B. and his guitar Lucille along with a bass player and a drummer… an essential blues trio. I managed to sit at a table those three nights just in front of the small stage at that legendary music club in Georgetown. I have a plank from that stage in my office that is now gilded, that B.B. King performed on.
To this day I will never forget how B.B.’s singing and guitar playing wove together with such feeling and creativity, that you actually had a transcendental experience listening to his performance. His guitar phrasing and his vocals would rise to a climax that would bring you to a place where your consciousness expanded. This photograph from 1968 captures that feeling at that time and was exactly how B.B. King looked as he was performing then. God bless B.B. King.