The small Arkansas town that almost cost BB King his career: “Two men died”
Few people have personified the blues in quite the same way as BB King, who took the age-old sound of the soulful scene and injected it with the 20th-century stylings of his seemingly limitless guitar talents. You cannot sing the blues in the way that King did, however, without having experienced your fair share of pain.
King’s early years sound like the subject of a heartbreaking blues odyssey in themselves: born on a cotton plantation in deepest Mississippi, a child of a broken home living in poverty with his grandmother, and finding his only solace through learning to sing gospel at one of three local churches. In fact, the only way a young BB King could afford his very first guitar was to work for two months unpaid, in an effort to pay off the debt to his employer, who bought that guitar for him.
For a scene that is often guilty of being overly obsessed with authenticity, blues artists don’t come any more authentic than King, so it is no surprise that the guitarist ended up completely revolutionising the landscape of blues music.
First emerging onto the widespread radar towards the tail-end of the 1940s, it didn’t take long for the performer to establish himself among the greatest guitarists and songwriters in blues history, but, as time went on, nobody could have predicted the incredible influence he would exert over the emergence of rock and roll, too.
Everybody from Eric Clapton to Jimi Hendrix owed a core part of their existence as guitarists to the pioneering sounds of BB King, and they did little to mask that fact, either. Not only is his name regarded among the greatest blues musicians of all time, but his musical influence is still palpable to this day. Still, there was a time when the world came very close to never having heard the name BB King, owing to a devastating fire back in 1949.
At the time, King was earning money performing in a small club in the small, unincorporated community of Twist, Arkansas, and, as he once recalled during an interview with David Sheff, it was a time before health and safety had been implemented.
“It was a cold night,” the guitarist remembered. “In the centre of the floor, there was a big container with kerosene that was burning to keep us warm.”
For those already aware of the dangers of having an open tank of burning kerosene inside a – presumably – wooden building, you can probably guess where this story goes next. “Two guys started fighting – something about the cook, a woman named Lucille,” King continued. “Something about marrying. They fell over the fire, which spilled everywhere.”
That burning kerosene spread quickly, engulfing the club and claiming the lives of two patrons. “Two men died in it,” King said, before recalling his lucky escape. “I got out, but I left my guitar inside. I couldn’t afford to lose that guitar, so I went back in and brought it out.” That decision could quite easily have claimed the life of BB King before he had a chance to properly get his name out there.
Though King did manage to escape relatively unscathed from the incident, that bar brawl and fire always stuck with him. Namely, because he continued to play that same guitar for so many years afterwards. “I named the guitar Lucille, after the cook,” he shared. “Lucille’s been with me since.”
