Legendary musician B.B.King dies at 89

Patty King said her father, a singular figure of US music history, was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital this month after suffering from dehydration. US media reports said King died late Thursday in Las Vegas.

King played a guitar he famously called “Lucille” and had been inducted into both the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His signature song was “The Thrill is Gone.” From juke joints, country dance halls and ghetto nightclubs, B.B.King rose to international super stardom and reached the pinnacle of blues music. He played around 200-300 shows per year and in 1956, B.B.King played 342 one-night-stands. Since beginning in the early 1940s, his career further transcended into the 60s and 70s where the Rock n Roll culture embraced him wholeheartedly. B.B.King was also an inspiration to many famous musicians such as Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

Kings’s voice was magical and stood out from the rest of the musicians from the pack. Filled with a longing for lost love, lust and soulful pain, King’s music connected with audiences across decades. A prolific musician no doubt, he was a millionaire by the time he was 80 years old.