Blues legend BB King, who inspired a generation of guitarists from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, passed away in Las Vegas on Thursday. He was 89. Riley B King, also known as Blues Boy King, best known as BB King, one of the world's greatest — if not the greatest — blues singer and guitar player, is no more. He died in his sleep on Thursday at the age of 89. The great grandson of slaves and having started life as a farm labourer picking cotton in Mississippi, he achieved international fame over a career spanning six and a half decades. 

He epitomized the genre of blues music — which originated in the chants and hollers of slaves who worked in the "deep south" of the United States and which fused traditional African and European folk and spiritual songs to create musical forms that are commonly found in jazz and rock music.