Just since the start of a new year, the world has lost what feels like an inordinate number of high-profile music-world figures: rock provocateur David Bowie, singer Natalie Cole, Eagles founding member Glenn Frey, composer-conductor Pierre Boulez, Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner, jazz musician Paul Bley, Motorhead front man Lemmy Kilmister and superstar manager-record company executive Robert Stigwood, among others.
The Grammy Awards telecast typically pays homage to those who have died during the previous year, often singling out one of the most prominent for a musical salute. Given the deluge of deaths, it wouldn’t be hard to fill the three-hour time slot with salutes to the recently departed, but it’s no surprise that blues great B.B. King turned out to be a slam dunk for one of the featured spots in the Feb. 15 telecast.
FULL COVERAGE: Grammy Awards 2016
“It’s been a tough year,” Grammys telecast executive producer Ken Ehrlich told The Times this week. “We knew we wanted to do something for B.B. He was really one of our special Grammy guys.”
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B.B. King, born to a sharecropping family in September 1925 in Itta Bena, Miss., went on to become one of the best blues performers in the world.
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After serving in World War II, B.B. King became a disc jockey in Memphis, Tenn. He earned the name “the Beale Street Blues Boy,” which was shortened to Blues Boy King, and eventually B.B. In 1948, pictured, he landed his big break when he performed on a local radio program.
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In 1949, B.B. King made his first recording. He’s pictured here a few years later with bandleader Johnny Otis, who also went on to have a storied career.
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B.B. King is at the microphone during a drive to raise money for radio station WDIA’s Wheelin’ on Beale March of Dimes charity for baby and pregnancy health.
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A year after signing with ABC Records, B.B. King takes the stage at the Apollo Theater in New York’s Harlem in 1963.
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B.B. King, whose performances took him to small and large cities alike, plays the guitar at Central Park in New York in June 1969.
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B.B. King and his band play the blues at Southern California’s Chino state prison in 1972.
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B.B. King worked with all kinds of musicians from rock, country and pop genres. Here, blues musicians John Lee Hooker, left, and Papa John Creach, right, collaborate with King on “Gettin’ It Together” on the TV show “The Midnight Special” in Los Angeles in 1974.
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B.B. King appears on “American Bandstand” with host Dick Clark in Los Angeles in 1975. Just a few years earlier, he had released his biggest hit single, “The Thrill Is Gone.”
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B.B. King attends a party and chats with some folks in Los Angeles. About a year later, he became the first bluesman to tour the Soviet Union.
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B.B. King delivered musical performances in all kinds of places, including dance halls, concert halls, small-town cafes, universities, resort hotels and amphitheaters both nationally and internationally. Here, King and his band command the stage in 1980.
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B.B. King received an honorary doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music. He’s pictured here with President Lee Eliot Berk during Berklee’s commencement ceremony in 1985.
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As the story goes, King once ran into a burning building to save his guitar. When he found that the blaze started because of a fight over a woman named Lucille, he named his Gibson guitar “Lucille” as a reminder. Here, B.B. King performs at Michael’s Supper Club in Dana Point in 1988.
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B.B King puts his hands in wet cement to be the newest member of the Rock Walk on Sunset Boulevard in 1989.
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In 1991, B.B. King‘s Blues Club opened in Memphis, and in 1994, a club pictured here began at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles (it has since closed).
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Eric Clapton and B.B. King perform a blues number at the Shrine Auditorium during the 41st Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 1999.
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Music legends B.B. King, left, and Tony Bennett hold their Grammys at the 42nd Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2000.
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In 2001, B.B. King won awards for traditional blues album and pop collaboration with vocals at the 43rd Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
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Music legends Les Paul, t88, left, and B.B. King, 77, put their heads together during a 2003 jam session at the third anniversary celebration of the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in New York’s Times Square.
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B.B. King is overcome by emotion before performing a song during the funeral for singer Ray Charles at the First AME Church in Los Angeles.
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B.B. King performs in Lowell, Mass., in 2005.
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Artwork fills the background at a party and concert to celebrate B.B. King‘s 80th birthday, which also raised funds for the B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Miss., in 2005.
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Bono pays his respect to honoree B.B. King at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz gala performance at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in 2008.
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John Mayer and B.B. King perform at the Grammys nomination announcement and concert at the Nokia Theatre in 2008.
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Eric Clapton, and B.B. King perform onstage during the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill.
(Kevin Mazur / WireImage) King, in fact, collected 15 Grammys during his 89 years, plus a lifetime achievement award in 1987. He received his first Grammy in 1970 — for male R&B vocal performance — with the hit that made him known to the masses, “The Thrill Is Gone.”
That song that will be performed on the show by rising country star Chris Stapleton, blues singer-guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and another longtime Grammys show favorite, singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt, who was a friend and disciple of King’s distinctive approach to the blues.
“So many of us were introduced to the blues by the British Invasion bands,” Raitt told The Times in May when King died. “The Beatles and the [Rolling] Stones turned a lot of us onto the more obscure American R&B and blues acts. You’d hear all those guys talk about their influences, people like Paul Butterfield and John Mayall, and B.B. King was their hero.
“After I got lucky enough to meet him, he remained one of the most gracious, humble, friendly and loving people I ever met in my life.” Regardless of being such a giant and so significant, as a friend and open-hearted man, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody so humble and generous and gracious and appreciative.
“I think he had an awareness of his own position and why everyone respects him so much but he’s never been one to boast or be arrogant in any way, and that’s a very endearing quality in royalty.”
Ehrlich said he’d been planning to ask Stapleton to be involved in the show in some capacity and came across a performance of him singing “The Thrill Is Gone” on YouTube. Ehrlich suggested pairing him with Clark, who has been a regular at Grammys telecasts in recent years, and Stapleton subsequently asked whether they might also invite Raitt.
“I also had thought about Bonnie for this,” Ehrlich said. “It’s hard to go wrong with her. But he brought it up and asked if that made sense. I knew he was going to suggest her before the words came out of his mouth. We asked her, she said she’d be happy to do it, and it was done. We had one phone call with everybody on, and it just felt right.”
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Click through the gallery to see some of the top Grammys 2016 winners and nominees including Taylor Swift, the Weeknd and Ed Sheeran. Make sure to check out The Times’ complete Grammys coverage.
(From left: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times; Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times; Matt Sayles / Invision / AP) 2/16
WINNER: Album of the year, pop vocal album and music video; NOMINATED: Record of the year, song of the year, pop solo performance, pop duo/group performance.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 3/16
WINNER: Record of the year and Pop duo/group performance; NOMINATIONS: Pop vocal album
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) 4/16
WINNER: Best New Artist
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) 5/16
WINNER: Rock song, rock performance and alternative music album; NOMINATIONS: Album of the year.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 6/16
WINNER: Song of the year and pop solo performance. NOMINATIONS: Record of the year, album of the year.
(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) 7/16
WINNER: rap album, rap performance, rap song, rap/sung collaboration, and music video; NOMINATED: album of the year, song of the year.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8/16
WINNER: R&B performance, urban contemporary album; NOMINATIONS: Record of the year, album of the year, pop solo performance, R&B song, and song written for visual media.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 9/16
WINNER: R&B song and R&B album; NOMINATIONS: Record of the year.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) 10/16
WINNER: Country solo performance, country album; NOMINATIONS: Album of the year, country song.
(Jenna Schoenefeld / For The Times) 11/16
NOMINATIONS: Rap performance, rap/sung collaboration, rap song and rap album
(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times) 12/16
NOMINATIONS: Pop duo/group performance, pop vocal album, rock performance and rock song
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13/16
Nominations: Rap performance, rap/sung collaboration and rap album
(Christopher Polk / Getty Images for A+E Networks) 14/16
WINNER: Country duo/group performance; NOMINATIONS: Country album.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 15/16
NOMINATIONS: New artist and country album
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 16/16
NOMINATIONS: R&B performance and R&B album
(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) King was an almost universally beloved musician and personality, who regularly collaborated with other musicians. His influence extended far beyond blues circles both because of his unique approach to playing guitar and his distinctive vocal style.
“I can’t think of any artist who has had as much as an influence on modern rock ‘n’ roll or R&B as B.B. King, and the blues as well,” Raitt said. “His guitar playing has been a monumental influence on so many people who’ve gone on to be come cornerstones of our musical legacies.
“Their own legacies trace to B.B. and his style of vibrato, the single note leads, his phrasing, his tone. Couple that with oftentimes people overlook that he’s such an amazing singer. His eloquence and his soul as a singer, the way he interprets a lyric, the way he plays his voice like an instrument — his voice is as intrinsic to who he is as an artist as his playing.”
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