B.B. King
Riley B. King was born on September 16, 1925, on the Berclair cotton plantation near the town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers Albert and Nora Ella King. He considered the nearby city of Indianola, Mississippi to be his home. When King was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, so he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Elnora Farr, in Kilmichael, Mississippi.
Black Angel Blues
In 1956, B.B. King recorded "Sweet Little Angel" (RPM Records 468). According to King, "I got the idea for 'Sweet Little Angel' from Robert Nighthawk's 'Sweet Black Angel', though I later discovered that the song had been recorded by someone before Nighthawk. At the time 'black' was not a popular word, as it is now. Instead of using the old title, I changed it to 'Sweet Little Angel'—and that was a pretty big record for me". King's version, which included a horn section, was a stylistic shift for the song and it became a hit, reaching number eight on the Billboard R&B chart. In 1957, he re-recorded "Sweet Little Angel" for his first album "Singin' the Blues". Both versions prominently feature B.B. King's guitar work, with his note-bends "sounding almost like a lap steel in places."