Riley B. King was born in the Mississippi Delta, and picked cotton throughout his youth. At age five his parents split up. He credits his schoolteacher, Luther Henson, as his first and perhaps most important influence because Henson gave him hope and let him know that there was a world beyond the cotton fields. The Reverend Archie Fair of the Elkhorn Baptist Church next to his school provided him with his first exposure to the guitar.
His mother died at age...