With a career beginning in the 1940s and bringing him huge success as early as the 1950s, blues icon B.B. King has always managed to successfully straddle the territory of commercial success and critical acclaim.
Using his trademark custom-made guitar Lucille since the 1950s, B.B. King has won 14 Grammys over a career spanning seven decades, in which he has played more than 10,000 shows.
The recognition for B.B. King's talent has only grown the longer he has been around. In 1980 he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, and in 1987 this honor was extended to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2003 a Rolling Stone ranking named him the greatest living guitarist, further solidifying his status as a legend in musical history.