KING, RILEY B.

KING, RILEY B. (B. B.). Bluesman (16 September 1925 near Indianola, Mississippi). He was born on a plantation between Indianola and Itta Bena, Mississippi. He came from a musical family: his grandfather played bottleneck guitar, and both parents sang. As a child he sang in a spiritual quartet at school and later sang in church choirs. Self-taught on the guitar, he began playing about 1943; he formed a gospel quartet, the Elkhorn Singers, that sang in local churches. After a...