'The thrill is gone'

Blues legend B B King, whose crisp but powerful guitar licks made him among the instrument's greatest masters and a towering influence over generations of musicians, has died at 89.

An impoverished son of a Mississippi sharecropper who turned into one of music's iconic figures for a half century, King passed away late Thursday, his official website said in a brief statement that cited one of his most famous songs -- "The Thrill is Gone."

"The blues has lost its king, and America has lost a legend," said President Barack Obama, who recalled once being persuaded to sing "Sweet Home Chicago" at the White House with King.

"B B may be gone, but that thrill will be with us forever. And there's going to be one killer blues session in heaven tonight," Obama said.

Artists across genres credited King as one of the defining forces in 20th-century music -- and recalled his famous geniality.

"There are not many left that play it in the pure way that BB did," said rock-blues guitarist Eric Clapton.

Lenny Kravitz, a younger star guitarist and singer, said of King on Twitter: "Anyone could play a thousand notes and never say what you said in one."

The Canadian singer Bryan Adams called King "one of the best blues guitarists ever, maybe the best. He could do more on one note than anyone."

Born in poverty as Riley B King, the future legend started to work the cotton fields at age seven but found his life transformed when a plantation owner gave him a guitar at 12.

King helped shape the modern blues -- a narrative-driven, often melancholy genre, with roots in African American spirituals, that emerged fully during Emancipation from slavery. But King also managed to bring the blues to a white and international audience, setting in motion the direction of rock.

His guitar playing focused not on speed or on sweeping chords but instead on well-chosen, sharp single notes.

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him the third greatest guitar legend, after Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman and just ahead of Eric Clapton.