B.B. King Explains in an Animated Video Whether You Need to Endure Hardship to Play the Blues

George Har­ri­son had a beloved gui­tar named Lucy. B.B. King has one named Lucille. Curi­ous, that.

Above, in a new ani­mat­ed video by Blank on Blank, B.B. explains the sto­ry behind the nam­ing of his leg­endary gui­tar, and then answers the big ques­tion: Do you real­ly need to endure hard times to play the blues?  No spoil­ers here.

The audio was record­ed in Sep­tem­ber, 1985 by Warn­er Bros. A&R man­ag­er Joe Smith. While writ­ing a book on the music indus­try, Smith taped inter­views with leg­endary fig­ures like Dave Brubeck, Lou Reed, Paul McCart­ney, Joan Baez, Her­bie Han­cock, David Bowie, George Har­ri­son, Yoko Ono, James Brown, Bo Did­dley, Jer­ry Gar­cia, Chris­tine McVie, Mick Jag­ger, Lin­da Ron­stadt and more. Each inter­view runs 30–60 good min­utes. They’re fas­ci­nat­ing to lis­ten to, and you can find them on iTunes and the web.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Archive of Audio Inter­views with Rock, Jazz & Folk Leg­ends Now on iTunes

Maya Angelou Tells Studs Terkel How She Learned to Count Cards & Hus­tle in a New Ani­mat­ed Video

Blank on Blank Ani­ma­tions Revive Lost Inter­views with David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck