“The Thrill Is Gone”

B.B. King | Live in cook county jail, 1971 | Guitarist: B.B. King

- By Chris Gill

I recently read an online article that described B.B. King’s tone as “warm and mellow.” To me, that was the equivalent of saying Eddie Van Halen played great power chords, as it only tells a very small fraction of the story and almost completely ignores the more important details.

Yes, B.B. King’s tone could sometimes be “warm” and “mellow,” but more often it was bright, brilliant, aggressive, percussive, voice-like, honking and dynamic. For example, listen to any version of King’s best known song, “The Thrill Is Gone” — warm and mellow are probably the last adjectives that come to mind when one hears his punchy, metallic, biting tone.