Saunders Samuel King (March 13, 1909 – August 31, 2000) was an American R&B and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist and singer.

Life and career

Saunders King was born in Staples,

Caddo Parish Caddo Parish ( French: ''Paroisse de Caddo'') is a parish located in the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the parish had a population of 237,848. The parish seat is Shreveport, which developed a ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. His parents, Bishop Judge L. King and Sarah Anasilistine King built a church in

before moving the family to

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

and then to

Oroville, California Oroville (''Oro'', Spanish for "Gold" and ''Ville'', French for "town") is the county seat of Butte County, California, United States. The population of the city was 15,506 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 13,004 in the 200 ...

. After building a church there, the family moved to

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

and started Christ Holy Sanctified Church on 7th Street. As a youngster he learned to play piano,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

and

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

and sang in the church, but did not pick up

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

until 1938. At the end of the 1930s he sang with the Southern Harmony Four Gospel Quartet on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

radio, and began playing the guitar in 1938. King released the tune "S.K. Blues" (originally titled "Saunders Blues") in 1942, which became a major nationwide

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

. The tune featured

electric blues Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplifier, amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the ...

guitar, one of the earliest

recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

to do so.

The lyrics begin: :"Come here, pretty baby, and put your fine mellow body on my knee... I wanna whisper in your ear and tell you things keep worrying me." King was known for his smooth, velvety voice and flawless performances, whether with a sextet or trio. King's guitar of choice was the Gibson 300. The track was later recorded by both

Jimmy Witherspoon James Witherspoon (August 8, 1920 – September 18, 1997) was an American jump blues singer. Early life, family and education Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. His father was a railroad worker who sang in local choirs, and his mot ...

and

Big Joe Turner Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." His greatest fame was due to ...

. King traveled to Chicago and performed at the Cafe Society. He met and married Jo Frances Willis in 1948. The couple had two daughters: Kitsaun Jo King and Deborah Sara King and raised them in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. King continued to perform at the Savoy, Club Alabam, Jack's on Sutter, on NBC Radio, and at the

Geary Theater Geary, an Anglicized rendering of the Irish name ''O'Gadhra'', has a number of meanings: __NOTOC__ Places * Geary, New Brunswick, Canada * Geary, Isle of Skye, Scotland, a township * Geary, Kansas, United States, a ghost town in Doniphan County * ...

. He recorded for

Aladdin Records Aladdin Records was a record company and label founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by brothers Eddie and Leo Mesner. It was originally called Philo Records before changing its name in 1946. Aladdin was known for jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock mus ...

Modern Records Modern Records (Modern Music Records before 1947) was an American record company and label formed in 1945 in Los Angeles by the Bihari brothers. Modern's artists included Etta James, Joe Houston, Little Richard, Ike & Tina Turner and John Lee ...

, and Rhythm Records, and had two US ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' R&B

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

hits in 1949 with "Empty Bedroom Blues" (number 9) and "Stay Gone Blues" (number 14). He retired from active performance in 1961, devoting himself to his family and playing his guitar Sundays in the family church. In 1973, his daughter Deborah King married

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

, and, in 1979, King recorded with his son-in-law on the album ''

Oneness Oneness may refer to: Economy * Law of one price (LoP), an economic concept which posits that "a good must sell for the same price in all locations". Religious philosophy * Oneness Pentecostalism, a movement of nontrinitarian denominations * Nond ...

''. King suffered a stroke in 1989. He and his wife Jo Frances lived in San Rafael and he died in August 2000 at age 91.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Saunders 1909 births 2000 deaths African-American guitarists African-American male singers American blues guitarists American rhythm and blues guitarists American male guitarists American blues singers American rhythm and blues singers Singers from Louisiana RPM Records (United States) artists 20th-century American singers 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from Louisiana 20th-century American male singers Family of Carlos Santana