B.B. King

B.B. King married Martha Lee Denton in 1946. This marriage did not last long and ended in 1952.

He tied the knot for the second time with Sue Carol Hall in 1958. This marriage too ended in 1966.

It is reported that he had been involved with other several women as well and had fathered 15 children.

He was born as Riley B. King on September 16, 1925, in Mississippi to Albert and Nora Ella King. His parents were sharecroppers on a cotton plantation. His mother abandoned the family when Riley was young and thus he was raised by his maternal grandmother.

He was interested in music from a young age and received his first guitar at the age of 12. Soon he taught himself to play the instrument and started playing on street corners to earn some money.

As a young man he acquired the nickname "the Beale Street Blues Boy" which was later shortened to just “B.B.”.

He moved to Memphis to embark on a musical career. He got a chance to perform on Sonny Boy Williamson’s radio program on KWEM, following which he gained some popularity.

He soon started receiving offers to perform at different avenues and earned a ten-minute spot on the Memphis radio station WDIA. The spot became an instant hit and it was later expanded into the Sepia Swing Club.

In 1949, he began recording songs. Even though his initial recordings were not much successful, he got a big breakthrough with his 1952 single, ‘3 O'Clock Blues’, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts and effectively launched his career.

Propelled by the success of this single, he began touring extensively. By the mid-1950s he gained a reputation for performing in hundreds of shows in a year—in 1956, he along with his band played an astonishing 342 one-night stands.

He became the uncrowned king of blues and one of the most influential names in R&B music in the 1950s. Some of the super-hits he produced in the decade are ‘You Know I Love You’, ‘Woke Up This Morning’, ‘Please Love Me’, ‘When My Heart Beats like a Hammer’, ‘Whole Lotta Love’, and ‘You Upset Me Baby’.

The blues album, ‘Riding with the King’, released by King in collaboration with Eric Clapton was his most commercially successful album. The album peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard's Top Blues Albums and was certified Multi-Platinum in the United States.