Peter Frampton: B.B. King Showed Me the Way

I was so nervous to meet him—because he’s the king. But he couldn’t have been a nicer person if he tried. B.B. King instantly became a dear friend.

I met him two years ago during Frampton’s Guitar Circus. It was an idea I had to get as many guitar players on stage in every city, but I needed someone to come share the bill with us. I thought, it would never happen, but someone like B.B. King would be incredible.

When we put the calls out, who was the first to call back? B.B. King. It meant so much to me that he regarded me in the light that he did. Everyone was in awe of him as a person, and of course as a player and a singer.

To actually get a chance to sit down with him every night of the tour and play “The Thrill Is Gone” with him was like nirvana for a guitar player. During the tour, he’d give me a wink and start playing, and I’d come and join him. One night he gave me a big kiss on my cheek. I think that says it all for me, right there. It’s just a wonderful memory—sitting there on the stage, playing “The Thrill Is Gone” with the King. It doesn’t get any better than that.

He influenced everybody. He changed guitar playing for all of us in England, that’s for sure. His music was brought to us by people like Eric Clapton and Peter Green and many others. It became something we all listened to in Europe, and then we came to America and started playing the blues English style.

We are a disposable group of people in America. We tear down buildings that shouldn’t be torn down, and we move on to the next when it comes to music. So B.B. used to say that he had such a long a career because people like Eric Clapton listened to his music and came to back to America and reminded Americans of how good the blues were.

He changed the approach to guitar. He had a style—a very seductive style. The blues are seductive, anyway—it’s got that greasy thing about it. He just had a style that you just couldn’t stop listening to. You were just drawn into it. His music will never go away. He’ll be streaming through the years.