How B.B. King’s Guitar Lucille Got Its Legendary Name

On this episode of Our American Stories, few instruments are as iconic as B.B. King’s guitar Lucille, a Gibson ES-355 that carried the voice of the blues across the world. But the story of how Lucille got her name begins in a crowded dance hall, with a fire that nearly claimed B.B. King’s life. From that moment on, every guitar he played bore the same name, a reminder of that night and a symbol of his bond with the blues. Longtime friend Myron Johnson and Daniel de Visé, author of King of the Blues, share the unforgettable tale.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Neil Young has Old Black, Willie Nelson has Trigger,

(00:32):
and Elvis Presley had the Dove. But perhaps the most
famous nickname for a guitar is what BB King named
is Gibson Es three point fifty five, and that is Lucille.
Up next, the story of how that guitar got its name.
Here to start us off is BB King's longtime friend

(00:53):
Byron Johnson, followed by Daniel Davis, author of The King
of the Blues. Let's get into this story.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
That story has been repeated and told, and I'm amazed
that it's remained consistent as it has over the years,
because you know, you can start a conversation at one
end and after it passes through four or five people,
that comes out on the other and completely different than
what it started, but very consistent with that. In that

(01:23):
BB was doing a performing at a.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Juke joint sort of off the books joint in the
black community.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
In Twist, Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Which is named for a white family called Twist. There
was probably probably a sharecropping community.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
And doing his performance. While he was on stage, these
two guys ended up finding out that they were romancing
the same woman.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
A beautiful server in this in this juke joint, and.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
They got into a fight over this woman. And back
in the day, juke joints ran around and uh during
the cold, cold months, uh winter time, they would take
a big barrel like uh like like you would see
a big oil barrel nowadays, and uh they would fill
it up with kerosene and uh and wood and uh

(02:16):
they would light that and set it on fire and
put that off in the middle of the room and
it would radiate with the people mingling around and what
have you. It would radiate the heat coming off of that. Well,
these two guys got into a fight and uh tussling
and wrestling, and uh.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
They knock over a kerosene lamp and it starts a fire, and.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
The kerosene just flew across the floor and the fire
went with it on top of the kerosene, and it
just looked like a wave of a wave of fire
coming at you. And they set the place on fire. Well, Uh, BB,
like everybody else, Uh jumped up and commenced a running
getting the hell out of there, and uh trying to

(03:00):
save his life, trying not to get burnt up. And
uh because the place, I mean, these places were were shanties.
I mean it wasn't much to him. They went up
like a cinderbox. You know, it was not much to him,
so it w wasn't The place became engulfed in flames,
and everybody headed for the exit along with BB. And
uh he got outside and realized that in his haste

(03:22):
to uh protect his butt, that he had left his
guitar on the stage.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
B became Russias in to get his guitars so it
doesn't burn up because he can't afford to buy another one.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
You know, times were hard guitars and money was hard
to come back, and he was like a guitar. He
turned around and ran back inside and uh he got it,
but before he could get out, the place collapsed around him,
and he was h He had some severe burns from that.

(03:56):
Uh and uh he showed me, he showed me the
scars before he died, and he got burned pretty good.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
And as I guess, as he's cradling his smoking guitar
outside of the burning remains of the juke joint. He
hears somebody say, oh man, that Lucille. She started the
whole thing.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
And he decided to name his guitar Lucille to remind
him of that moment and, as he put it, to
never do anything that's stupid again, because the guitar, as
important as it was to him, it wasn't worth his life.
And he came close to losing his life that night.
But that was the that's the gist of that story.

(04:38):
That's how that came about.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
And we don't really know when it happened. I think
some of the official counts say it was in nineteen
forty nine. Others say it was nineteen fifty. There's a
marker in Twist, Arkansas, which I think says it was
in the early fifties. But you don't see a mention
of Lucille anywhere in print. And I swear this to
you until nineteen sixty seven, which made me wonder, Wait,

(05:06):
did they brand Lucille in nineteen sixty seven? Did they
create the name then, you know, which wouldn't have surprised me.
So I went back and asked sue his ex wife
and people who played with him in like nineteen forty nine,
nineteen fifty, nineteen fifty one, I said, was Lucille a thing? Yes, yes,
I guess she was. I guess that BB King called

(05:27):
his guitar Lucille and was calling her Lucille by about
nineteen fifty. This according to people who actually were playing
with him in nineteen fifty, and it was just an
inside thing, an inside joke, if you will. Lucille's identity
wasn't known outside of mister King's inner circle until he
starts talking about her, first with the Black Press, then

(05:47):
with the White Press in nineteen sixty seven. This when
he has a record coming out that's called Lucille and
a Song, wherein he tells her story.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
The original Lucille that was left in the fire, that
that guitar was stolen years ago, uh many years ago,
as he put it. Uh he was uh after the fire.
He was going to visit a friend. I don't know
this was a lady friend or a guy friend. All

(06:18):
he said told me was that he was going by
to visit a friend. And back in that day he uh, well,
he put his guitar, he put uh Lucille in the
trunk of the of the car. And back in that day,
you had uh like for for s. For example, GMC
General Motors would make a car. Well, they might might

(06:38):
make a different model cars, but the key to the
trunk was generic and fit every model that they made.
So he left the guitar in the trunk and went
in to spend time with his friends. Uh come out
someone at key the uh the trunk and h taking
Lucille and uh you know, to this day, uh we

(07:00):
don't know who took her, where she is or if
she even exists at this point. But BB had a
number of guitars between the fire and the time he passed,
and Bib was playing them, he named them Lucille. Every
guitar he ever played after that he named Lucille.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
The story of how Lucille came to be. That is
the name of BB King's guitar. This is Our American Stories.
More after these message. This is Lee Habib, host of
Our American Stories. Every day on this show we tell
stories of history, faith, business, love, loss, and your stories.

(07:43):
Thend us your story small or large to our email
oas at our American Stories dot Com. That's oas at
Ouramerican stories dot com. We'd love to hear them and
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