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Here’s the legendary BB King with a beautiful stripped back jam of his massive hit The Thrill is Gone backed only by electric piano. This is taken from the brilliant documentary ’Give My Poor Heart Ease’, one of a series of films made in Mississippi in the mid 1970s by William Ferris and the Center for Southern Folklore and produced in association with Howard Sayre Weaver. I don’t make anything putting these videos together so please support the channel with the link here if you can its greatly appreciated! Guitar & Vocals: BB King Electric Piano: Bill Oppenheimer (One of William Ferris’s students) This section was filmed in the master’s living room at Calhoun College, William Ferris explains below: “This is in the late afternoon, and what is happening, as we will see, is that we begin to lose our light. The cameraman, Dale Lindquist, realized that and began shooting B. B.’s face very tightly to try to capture some of the expression. In the end, the light went very dark. And you see what looks to be a tear—it may be sweat coming down his face. We essentially ended the film with the music continuing before the end of the song because our light had disappeared. So we basically pulled our credits into the film and let them roll as the music was playing because the visual image had essentially gotten too dark to use as part of the film. The solution of pulling the credits into the film was suggested by John Godone, who was the negative cutter in New York City and an amazingly adept person with whom we worked on all four of our films.“ “The Thrill Is Gone“ is a slow minor-key blues song written by West Coast blues musician Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951. Hawkins’s recording of the song reached number six in the Billboard R&B chart in 1951. In 1970, “The Thrill Is Gone“ became a major hit for B.B. King. His version helped make the song a blues standard. B.B. King recorded his version of “The Thrill Is Gone“ in June 1969 for his album Completely Well, released the same year. King’s version is a slow 12-bar blues notated in the key of B minor in 4/4 time. The song’s polished production and use of strings marked a departure from both the original song and King’s previous material. When BluesWay Records released “The Thrill Is Gone“ as a single in December 1969, it became one of the most successful of King’s career and one of his signature songs. It reached number three in the Billboard Best Selling Soul Singles chart and number 15 in the broader Billboard Hot 100 chart. B.B. King’s recording earned him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 1970 and a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 1998. King’s version of the song was also placed at number 183 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Live versions of the song were included on King’s albums Live in Cook County Jail (1971), Bobby Bland and B.B. King Together (1976), and Live at San Quentin (1991). If any videos get blocked I tend to post them on my other social media platforms, so have a look if you don’t want to miss anything! All links are here: #colourised #bluesincolour #chicagoblues #bluessinger #blueslegend #bluesguitarist #bluesguitar #blueslegend #1970s #1960s #bluesmusic #bluesmusician #gibsonguitars #gibson345
