{"id":7043752,"date":"2026-08-22T10:47:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/b-b-king-hells-angels-and-the-naked-hippie-girl-every-record-tells-a-story\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T10:47:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:47:01","slug":"b-b-king-hells-angels-and-the-naked-hippie-girl-every-record-tells-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7043752","title":{"rendered":"B.B. King, Hells Angels and the Naked Hippie Girl \u2013 Every record tells a story"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In a used record shop in Nottingham in January I find a 1970 B.B. King LP with a picture of a guitar made from a watermelon on the cover. It\u2019s \u00a38, and called \u201cIndianola Mississippi Seeds\u201d. Inside the beautiful gatefold cover is a photo of the birth certificate of Riley King, and amongst the musicians playing on the album is Carole King, Joe Walsh of The Eagles and Leon Russell.<\/p>\n

As I hand over the cash it had me wondering: How did Riley become B.B.? And how did Carole King get to play on a B.B. King album before she released \u201cTapestry\u201d?<\/p>\n

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There are two things that stand out in the story of B.B. King. One is that the man never changed his style, despite living through unprecedented change. The second is that although B.B. eventually achieved huge mainstream success, both in the early \u201970s with \u201cThe Thrill Is Gone\u201d and stints in Las Vegas and with U2 in the late eighties, it isn\u2019t the acceptance from the mainstream community that makes him special. It\u2019s the music he made throughout his career, which remains constant, and individual to the point that you could hear B.B. King play a single note on a guitar and know it\u2019s him.<\/p>\n

Actually there\u2019s a third thing I learned about the life of B.B. King: People really had no idea about Health and Safety back in the day. It\u2019s a wonder that any of us are still here\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 1970. Fresh from the chart success of \u201cIndianola Mississippi Seeds\u201d BB King is about to play what he calls \u201cthe most amazing gig of all\u201d his career, at an outdoor rock festival in Macon, Georgia. After many years of successful but gruelling touring in front of mainly black audiences BB King is gaining a new following. A mainly white, hippie, rock loving one, who \u201cdiscover\u201d BB King thanks to The Beatles and The Stones acknowledging his influence.<\/p>\n

B.B. King flies in from California, and has a limo drive him to the outdoor festival. The limo is stuck in traffic so a couple of Hells Angels offer him a lift on the back of their bikes.<\/p>\n

This is the year after Altamont. A Hells Angel is carrying a black man on the back of his hog in one of the Southern states of America at a rock festival. (I bet he didn\u2019t give him a helmet).<\/p>\n

When King arrives, his band members are giggling mysteriously, but don\u2019t say why, and then leave.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a knock on the door. King answers.<\/p>\n

Outside is a young white girl in her twenties without a stitch of clothing. She explains she\u2019s King\u2019s escort for the festival. Not a groupie as it turns out- but an innocent flower-child way to welcome the musicians to the festival.<\/p>\n

Bloody hippies.<\/p>\n

King is nervous even though he can hear his band still laughing. \u201cI\u2019m nervous because this is Georgia\u201d he later reflects, \u201cWhat does a gentleman do in a situation like this?<\/p>\n

Perhaps he was thinking about 1944, when King enlisted into the US army. His bus, filled with newly enlisted black soldiers, passes some white women and one of the men calls out to them. At the next stop an enraged white man threatens them all with a shotgun.<\/p>\n

It seems extraordinary now to read of the injustices of the time, but King found that after \u201cgrowing up in a segregated world of uptight attitudes and prejudice\u201d he welcomed being in a world where both he and his music were embraced.<\/p>\n

Riley King of Blue Lake, near Indianola, Mississippi was a shy boy and had a stutter. His dad Albert named him partly after his brother and partly after Jim O\u2019Reilly, the white plantation owner whose tractor he drove, and who found the midwife as Riley was being born. When little Riley asked why he dropped the O\u2019 his dad replied, \u201cbecause you didn\u2019t look Irish\u201d.<\/p>\n

His dad was quite the wit.<\/p>\n

Riley looked forward to church because he could sit next to a pretty girl, and because of the music.<\/p>\n

Imagine looking forward to church because you like the girls and the music?<\/p>\n

When I was growing up we\u2019d go to the disco for girls and good music, and usually end up with neither\u2026<\/p>\n

He buys his first guitar aged twelve. It costs him $15. Two months wages.<\/p>\n

As a teenager Riley travels to the nearest city, Indianola. For ten cents he sees a three minute clip of Charlie Christian play guitar. \u201cA miracle man doing things to a guitar I never imagined possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Indianola\u2019s club, \u201cThe Jones Night Spot\u201d he is too young to gain admittance, but he peers through the cracks in the wall to see the ladies dancing amongst the four hundred people crammed in, and hears touring bands including Charlie \u201cBird\u201d Parker and Sonny Boy Williamson.<\/p>\n

Riley starts singing and playing guitar on Saturday afternoons to earn a little extra money.<\/p>\n

He begins to sing gospel songs and draws appreciation, but no-one leaves even a nickel.<\/p>\n

Bloody church-goers.<\/p>\n

He soon learns an important lesson.<\/p>\n

He switches the words from \u201cMy Lord\u201d to \u201cMy baby\u201d and personalises the songs he heard Sonny Boy play the week before. He gets the same praise, but also a few dimes. \u201cReal life songs\u201d he realises \u201chave cash value\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Second World War comes. King is used to segregation, but it still hurts when the German prisoners of war are rested and treated better than the black plantation workers. He\u2019s twenty years old and \u201cstarting to feel the weight of the system\u201d.<\/p>\n

King might have stayed in Indianola, but something happens that makes him move. It isn\u2019t being threatened with guns, or being treated badly.<\/p>\n

He crashes his tractor.<\/p>\n

The thought that he has let down his boss, Mr Johnson, makes King panic and he worries Mr Johnson will want to shoot him. And despite the fact he has a wife at home, he grabs his guitar and $2.50, and runs.<\/p>\n

All the way to Memphis.<\/p>\n

And there, he stays with his mum\u2019s cousin Bukka White for seven months, near the main musical hub of Beale Street. He tries to play like Bukka does with a slide, but he can\u2019t get the hang of it. Instead he develops a vibrato sound with his left hand, which later becomes his trademark.<\/p>\n

He returns back to his wife for a while, but Memphis calls again, and this time he has paid off the damage to the tractor and he starts afresh.<\/p>\n

But where to start? Get a press agent? Release some demos and build up a following on social media? Not in 1948 it would seem\u2026<\/p>\n

King calls on Sonny Boy Williamson, now presenting a radio show in West Memphis. He turns up at the radio station, guitar in hand, and asks Sonny if he can play a song, live, on the show. He auditions, and a few hours later he plays on the show. Just like that.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, an impressed Williamson is double booked for a gig and sends King to one of the venues to cover for him for the then king\u2019s ransom of $12.<\/p>\n

Boosted by this, King goes to another radio station, WDIA and asks to play. This time, the owner asks him to write a jingle for a tonic called Pepticon. He hums, and sings \u201cPepticon sure is good, and you can get it anywhere in your neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the back of this BB King now has his own ten minute radio show, playing songs and promoting a so called health tonic that actually had the same alcohol content as wine.<\/p>\n

(Why not just use wine? I digress.)<\/p>\n

Soon he had a second slot at 12.30, and before long, and for the next five years, BB King was a DJ. He\u2019d get up, pick cotton, plug Pepticon, then head back to the fields for another couple of hours. People liked the show, and King gained a nickname, the Beale Street Blues Boy. This became Blues Boy, Bee Bee and then B.B.<\/p>\n

Before Memphis he didn\u2019t even own a record player. Now he was surrounded by thousands of records. Salesmen gave him his own personal copies. \u201cI hoarded those records like a squirrel hoarding nuts\u201d he said. By the time he moved to Las Vegas in the mid \u201970s he had a record collection of over twenty thousand shellac 78s.<\/p>\n

Makes mine look incredibly modest, or so I keep telling my family.<\/p>\n

In the winter of 1949, BB King plays a gig in Twist, Arkansas. It\u2019s not a club, just a big room in a house, with a bucket of kerosene in the middle of the floor to heat the place up.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I mean about health and safety.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a club being heated by a garbage pail containing lighted aeroplane fuel that stands in the middle of the dance floor.<\/p>\n

Health and Safety Inspector:<\/b> \u201cCouldn\u2019t you move that away from where people are dancing?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Club owner<\/b>: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s fine\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

H&SI<\/b>: \u201cI don\u2019t know, it might get knocked. It\u2019s jet fuel. It doesn\u2019t seem awfully safe\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Club owner<\/b>: \u201cWell I can\u2019t move it to the side \u2013 it might set alight to the wall. Here, have a drink, what\u2019s the worst that can happen\u2026?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

A fight breaks out and the garbage pail of kerosene is kicked over, setting the house ablaze with \u201can incredible river of fire\u201d. Panic.<\/p>\n

Everyone stampedes out in a crush, elbowing each other out of the way.<\/p>\n

Then BB realises he has left his guitar in the burning building. He doesn\u2019t have the money to buy another, and heads back into the fire. A beam crashes in front of him just as he finds the guitar. He jumps over the beam and a wall collapses as he rushes to the exit. Two people are trapped in the building and are not so lucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn\u201d says one of the crowd, \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t think two guys would near kill each other over a gal like Lucille\u201d.<\/p>\n

BB\u2019s guitar is christened \u201cLucille\u201d from that moment on to remind King not to go and do anything quite so foolish again.<\/p>\n

The guitar is stolen not long afterwards.<\/p>\n

Lucky she was called Lucille. It wouldn\u2019t be as good a story if they had been fighting over a bloke called Gavin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s my guitar. I call him \u201cGavin\u201d\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cEr, riiiight\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Soon afterwards, King shows up late to a show, and there\u2019s Ike Turner waiting for him. Ike offers to help out and sits in with the band, playing piano.<\/p>\n

Ike is also a talent scout for the Bihari brothers, who own Modern Records, and they sign up King, who records for Modern for the next decade. BB\u2019s seventh single, a cover of Lowell Fulson\u2019s \u201cThree o Clock Blues\u201d hits number one on the RnB charts. For eighteen weeks.<\/p>\n

A big hit meant King could play bigger cities, for more money and so for the next eighteen years that\u2019s what he does. 330 shows a year on the circuit for many years, often because the taxman is after him. By 1955 he has his own branded bus, presumably called the BBmobile.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a>
In 1956 King plays 342 one-nighters, which is a ridiculous number of dates and I strongly suspect meant King was liable to attract disapproving looks from his wife.<\/p>\n

Over the next decade or so he\u2019s sometimes popular, sometimes out of favour. He\u2019s the outsider bluesman during the rock n roll years and the outsider bluesman during the soul years at the height of the civil rights movement. He is booed by a young crowd impatiently waiting for Sam Cooke, and who see King\u2019s blues as old fashioned.<\/p>\n

Bloody kids.<\/p>\n

Yet King keeps doing his thing. Despite all the external change, the fashions and the social change all around, BB King keeps playing the blues.<\/p>\n

In 1964 he plays the Regal theatre in Chicago. \u201cI\u2019ve probably played hundreds of better concerts\u201d he says. Only this time they record the show. The subsequent live album \u201cLive at the Regal\u201d wins critical favour and keeps B.B. King\u2019s name in the RnB charts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still the best way to introduce yourself to BB King\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

With new manager Sid Seidenberg on board to sort out King\u2019s money problems, King receives more appreciation from mainstream musicians only now hearing his work. John Lennon name-checks him, then Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Winter and The Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n

King looks to expand his audience and his manager books him in to play the Fillmore. He feels out of place amongst the weed-smoking hippy contingent. He takes a drink to steady his nerves.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s introduced onstage by Bill Graham. Walks out onstage. And for the first time ever receives a standing ovation before he\u2019s even played a note. Overcome, and with tears in his eyes, BB King plays for three hours. The times they are a changing\u2026<\/p>\n

King records the \u201cLive and Well\u201d album. Half the album is with BB King\u2019s band but at the request of his manager the other half King agrees can feature white session musicians. It\u2019s an attempt to broaden B.B.\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

For the next album \u201cCompletely Well\u201d BB King agrees to have the whole album feature session musicians. King\u2019s producer adds strings on a track called \u201cThe Thrill Is Gone\u201d. It\u2019s a smash hit. Number 15 in the pop charts. He supports The Rolling Stones on tour. B.B. King has now officially \u201ccrossed over\u201d attracting mainstream attention.<\/p>\n

For the follow up, \u201cIndianola Mississippi Seeds\u201d, session musicians return.<\/p>\n

But what session musicians\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting people to play with BB was never a problem\u201d said his producer. That was an understatement.<\/p>\n

On piano, Carole King is just working up her \u201cTapestry\u201d album. She takes time out to play, on a few tracks and there\u2019s a fantastic moment on the fourth song on the album where you hear a piano chord so recognisable that you can tell it\u2019s Carole playing. Also on piano comes Leon Russell, who brings his song \u201cHummingbird\u201d, which also features a pre-Eagles Joe Walsh.<\/p>\n

The songs are strong and slightly skewed to a potential mainstream audience with fresh interest in the \u201cThrill Is Gone\u201d star. Perhaps Leon Russell\u2019s \u201cHummingbird\u201d is the biggest expansion of B.B.\u2019s sound, featuring a choir at its climax, just like Russell\u2019s original. But in contrast to these slick touches, the album begins with King accompanied only by a piano with the deathless couplet \u201cNobody loves me but my mother \/ and she could be jivin\u2019 too\u201d.<\/p>\n

Was it B.B.\u2019s idea to bring people like Carole King and Leon Russell in on the sessions? \u2018No, that was my previous producer Bill Szymczyk\u2019s idea; but he did ask me if I would like to have them. I already knew of Carole King and I knew Leon Russell when he played with Joe Cocker. At that time we were looking for a follow-up to The Thrill Is Gone\u2019 . . . I\u2019d heard \u2018Hummingbird\u2019, but didn\u2019t see how I could do it. So Leon came out and played it for me on the session. I learned so much from him; that guy is really out of sight\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndianola Mississippi Seeds\u201d reached number 26 on the Billboard Charts and the single \u2018Hummingbird\u2019 reached number 48 in August 1970. \u2018Chains And Things\u2019 followed and reached number 45 in December of that year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndianola Mississippi Seeds\u201d is B.B. King\u2019s crossover album \u2013 capturing the time immediately after his biggest breakthrough and pitched to a wide audience of rock, pop and blues fans. But despite all the changes of personnel going on around him, all the expensive production and studio flourishes, the rock and pop influence, it\u2019s still a B.B. King album. It\u2019s still B.B.\u2019s voice, B.B.\u2019s unmistakeable playing and many of B.B.\u2019s best songs too. It\u2019s still a great blues album. You could take the man out of Mississippi, but you couldn\u2019t take Mississippi out of the man, or his music.<\/p>\n