"The Thrill Is Gone" is a slow minor-key

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 ...

song written by

West Coast blues West Coast blues is a type of blues music influenced by jazz and jump blues, with strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players who relocated to California in the 1940s. West Coast blues also ...

musician

Roy Hawkins Roy Theodore Hawkins (February 7, 1903 – March 19, 1974) was an American blues singer, pianist, and songwriter. After working in clubs, he broke through with his 1950 song "Why Do Things Happen to Me" inspired by an auto accident which par ...

and Rick Darnell in 1951. Hawkins's recording of the song reached number six in the Billboard R&B chart in 1951. In 1970, "The Thrill Is Gone" became a major hit for B.B. King. His rendition helped make the song a blues standard.

B.B. King rendition

B.B. King recorded his version of "The Thrill Is Gone" in June 1969 for his album '' Completely Well'', released the same year. King's version is a slow

12-bar blues The 12-bar blues (or blues changes) is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly based on ...

notated in the key of B minor in 4/4 time. The song's polished production and use of

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

marked a departure from both the original song and King's previous material. When BluesWay Records released "The Thrill Is Gone" as a single in December 1969, it became one of the most successful of King's career and one of his

signature song A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

s. It reached number three in the ''Billboard'' Best Selling Soul Singles chart and number 15 in the broader ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. B.B. King's recording earned him a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 1970 and a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 1998. King's version of the song was also placed at number 183 on '' Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Live versions of the song were included on King's albums ''

Live in Cook County Jail ''Live in Cook County Jail'' is a 1971 live album by American blues musician B.B. King, recorded on September 10, 1970, in Cook County Jail in Chicago. Agreeing to a request by jail warden Winston Moore, King and his band performed for an audie ...

'' (1971), '' Bobby Bland and B.B. King Together Again...Live'' (1976), and '' Live at San Quentin'' (1991).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thrill Is Gone, The 1951 songs 1969 singles 1970 singles ABC Records singles Aretha Franklin songs B.B. King songs Blues songs Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Song recordings produced by Bill Szymczyk