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Tech Titan celebrates Monday the birthday of B.B. King, legend of the blues, with an animated video of Google Doodle including its iconic version of "The Thrill Is Gone".
Google has commissioned Little Rock-based artist Steve Spencer and Brooklyn-based artist Nayeli Lavanderos to create and animate the Doodle. The B. B. King Museum of Mississippi collaborated with Google's Doodle team on the project.
The video was made by Angelica McKinley, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, based in Oakland, where King began recording. McKinley said she hoped the video would help people understand the breadth of King's life.
"Without having a complete formal education and advice from his parents, King took the talent that had been given to him at a time that was not kind to blacks and dedicated himself to sharing a music that was the pulse of the Mississippi Delta with the rest of the world, "she said. "This music was created from a pain that he knew too well, but King decided to own it."
King's version of "The Thrill Is Gone" was his biggest hit and won a Grammy in 1970. It showcased King's distinctive voice and his unique guitar style combining pierced notes played with instantly recognizable vibrato. The song was originally recorded by Roy Hawkins in 1951, but it was King's version that had helped turn the song into a standard blues.
He was born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925 on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. As a child, King sings with church choirs and learns the basic guitar chords of his uncle preacher. In his youth, he played around the streets with coins, claiming that he earned more by singing around the corner than in a week to work in the cotton field.
In 1947, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to pursue a life in music. He became a disc jockey of the famous AM radio station, WDIA, under the nickname Beale Street Blues Boy, which King then shortened to become "Blues Boy King" and eventually B.B. King.
The Doodle features one of King's guitars, still named Lucille. The name comes from a concert that King played in Arkansas in the 1950s. Two men arguing over a woman named Lucille spilled an oil stove, lighting a fire. King ran outside, but rushed to grab his $ 30 Gibson acoustic guitar.
During his career, he was nicknamed "The King of Blues". He has received a long list of honors – a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an inducement to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Presidential Medal of Freedom – without ever resting on his laurels. He has maintained a strong touring schedule well into his 80s.
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