Slash, the guitarist for Guns N’ Roses, is presently promoting “Orgy Of The Damned,” a new blues-focused covers album. He recorded well-known songs by Stevie Wonder, Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, Peter Green, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. However, he acknowledged in a Total Guitar interview that the late B.B. King is actually his favorite Blues musician.
Slash remembered that when he was a child, his grandmother used to play his music to him, and that’s how he first heard Blues music.
Slash says B.B. King is his favorite Blues guitarist
Slash says, “He was the guy, when I was a kid, way, way before I ever thought of picking up a guitar, he was the first traditional blues artist that I was exposed to, My grandmother played me B.B. King and it stuck with me.”
He added, “I heard a lot of blues artists after that, all around the family and stuff, but B.B. King, the first time I ever heard it, it really stuck with me, and so he ended up being my favorite blues guitar player out of all the greats that I really dig.”
Sadly, B.B. King passed away in 2015 at the age of 89 from multi-infarct dementia. However, Slash had the good fortune to share the stage with King on numerous occasions. The two had one of their most well-known disputes at the Royal Albert Hall. They played the King classic “The Thrill Is Gone,” with Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, and Ronnie Wood. That was Slash’s final performance alongside the Blues musician.
Slash recalled that King was always very friendly and almost “fatherly” to him during that same talk.
Numerous notable guests provide vocals on Slash’s latest album. Chris Robinson, Billy Gibbons, Iggy Pop, Paul Rodgers, and Brian Johnson are a few of them.