The tale of Lucille

Gibson Memphis B.B. King Lucille 2015

The great, now sadly late, B.B. King recounted the tale of how his guitars came to be named Lucille. Back in 1949, King was playing a hall that was being heated by a half barrel full of kerosene, common place at the time. A fight broke out and the room was engulfed in flames. Once outside, King realized that his guitar had been left behind and ran back in to get it. Our limited imagination can’t help but imagine an 80-something B.B. King waddling into a burning building to rescue his guitar. Thanks for the smile B.B.

The men who started the fight had been fighting over a girl named Lucille. No word on if she was worth it. The guitar that the young B.B. King ran back in to save was his $30 Gibson, roughly $300 today.

Since then there have been a number of Lucille’s. Some of them Fender Telecaster’s but most variations of a Gibson ES-355. In 1980, Gibson produced the first signature B.B. King Lucille ES-355.

The Gibson Memphis B.B. King Lucille 2015 guitar is a beautiful custom ES-355 with dual humbucker pickups and, a B.B. King standard request, no f-holes. It’ll run you a premium Gibson price listed at $4,199. Epiphone also has a fine version of Lucille on their site. King’s storied career and the amount of guitars that have been created to pay homage to his signature sound are plenty, so don’t let price get in the way of playing the blues.

RIP B.B. King.