Most Guitarists Miss This About B.B. King's Blues Guitar Vibrato
- Blue Morris
- 20 hours ago
- 5 min read
How was BB King so good at vibrato? First off — listen to him sing. Us guitar players are so focused on the guitar playing. But if you take a moment to really listen to him sing, you'll hear incredibly deep, emotional vibrato. And that sound we hear from his guitar? It's the same vibrato we hear in his voice. That's the best vibrato there could be on the guitar. It's vocal.
The 1951 Recording That Changes Everything
Let's back up a bit. Imagine it's 1951 in Memphis, Tennessee, and a young guitar player from Mississippi sets up his Fender amp at the WDIA radio station and gets ready to play and sing a song called 3 O'Clock Blues. He was just 25 years old, but he was about to record something that everyone in the business was going to notice.
The intro he played is a thing of beauty — that killer vintage guitar tone from his little tweed amp. But notice this: there's no vibrato in his guitar playing!
Listening to the original 1951 recording, the first things I notice are that dark old-school guitar tone, great licks, but surprisingly, no vibrato. Then, just after that guitar intro, you hear a voice sing like no other — filled with emotion and vibrato.
I have a theory: The famous BB King vibrato came a little later, and over time, he was reproducing on the guitar the sound he already knew how to sing.
Later in his career, his soloing is drenched in that famously beautiful vibrato — especially the technique he developed for first-finger vibrato notes. That's what we're going to look at in detail right now.
The BB King Vibrato Technique: Step by Step
Let's talk specifically about first finger bends. Here's what most people get wrong about vibrato technique in general. A lot of students think they've got to wiggle their finger around. That is certainly not the way BB King did it.
When you look really closely at his playing — especially his first finger — you'll see that his hand is connected to the fretboard. The side of his hand touches the fretboard, and that is really important to get this technique down. If you don't make that connection, you're going to lose control, and it's certainly not going to be that powerful BB King vibrato.
Use the point where your hand touches the side of the fretboard as a kind of fulcrum, so that you can push and pull your hand. When you do it right, it's not your finger moving around. It's your whole hand.
If you watch video of BB King do a first-finger bend, his hand is in the same position — you can see the whole hand move. It flutters, almost like a butterfly, as some people say.
The key details:
Your first finger stays at roughly a 45° angle
The finger stays stiff — you're not wiggling it
You're not pushing hard on the fretboard, because you want the hand to be able to move
When the hand moves, the string moves with it, because it's pressed down under that finger
Do it slow at first, and gradually increase the speed and the depth.
The Second Mistake Many Guitar Students Make
Now, here's a really important tip that a lot of students get wrong. It's very important not to bend the note out of tune.
A lot of people do that when they're first trying this BB King vibrato. Make sure the vibrato stays centered around the correct pitch. You need the string to move back and forth such that it hovers around that fundamental note. If you push the string too far one way or too far the other, it's hovering around a note that's not in key. It's the wrong note, and we're going to notice.
Think of it this way: move the string down, back to the center, up, back to the center. That way, the note will hover around the fundamental note and sound in key.
Putting It in Context
Try adding vibrato to the end of any simple lick. Play any minor pentatonic lick you like, hold on to that last note, and give it some vibrato. You've got to use it in context to get good at it, truly. Just pick any lick you might know.
You can even alter how deep or fast your vibrato is, depending on the moment in the song:
A slower, shallower vibrato works beautifully for a ballad
A faster, deeper vibrato suits something more dramatic
The deeper the vibrato, the more dramatic, of course.
What's Your Vibrato Personality?
You might have noticed that different guitar players have a different styles of vibrato, call it their "vibrato personality," if you will. Some players naturally have a very deep vibrato — BB King certainly did. My own vibraty style isn't naturally that deep, and that wasn't necessarily my intention. It's just the way it happened over all these many years.
Your own style can develop over time. Think of there being two variables: depth and speed.
You can try emulating the vibrato of a guitar player you like. Say you're really into AC/DC and you want your playing to sound closer to Angus Young's style. Or whoever you want to emulate. Vibrato is in all genres of guitar music. Just start to notice:
How often they use vibrato
How deep it is
How fast it is
Then choose a cool guitar lick from one of their songs and practice it with the style of vibrato you hear in that lick. Whether or not you get it precisely the same as the recording isn't that important. Just trying out different styles is great practice, and eventually you end up developing your own style. And that's better anyway, right?
The Real Lesson
BB King was a great singer. He also knew how to make his guitar sing — and that's my point. He wanted the guitar to sound similar to a human voice. He even called his guitar Lucille, right? And he treated every solo like a conversation. That's why it sounds so good.
Want more in the style of BB King? Check out my video on BB's Vibrato Technique to hear and see many examples of it. And if you want the full breakdown of that 3 O'Clock Blues intro, we're covering it in depth over on Patreon — it's free for 7 days, so you might as well try it out.
Blue Morris teaches guitar lessons in Vancouver, on YouTube, and on Patreon. He'll see you in the next one.
