Albert King Birthplace — Indianola, Mississippi

Albert King was born on April 25, 1923, in Indianola, Mississippi — the same Delta town as B.B. King, to whom he claimed to be a half-brother, though this has never been verified. King was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar strung upside down, which gave his bends an unusual quality — pulling down rather than pushing up — that produced one of the most distinctive sounds in blues history. His Stax Records recordings from the late 1960s, made in Memphis with Booker T. and the MGs as his rhythm section, are landmarks of soul-blues and the records that most directly influenced Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.

'Born Under a Bad Sign,' 'I'll Play the Blues for You,' 'Crosscut Saw,' and 'As the Years Go Passing By' are among King's most celebrated recordings. His 1968 Fillmore Auditorium recordings with Jimi Hendrix in the audience — Hendrix apparently sat in the front row studying King's technique — are part of the mythology of the electric guitar. Hendrix later recorded 'Born Under a Bad Sign' in tribute. Stevie Ray Vaughan has said that without Albert King he would not exist as a musician.

Indiola, Mississippi, in the heart of the Delta, is now primarily associated with B.B. King, whose museum is there. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker acknowledges Albert King's birth in the area. He died in Memphis in December 1992. His Flying V guitar — a left-handed right-handed model he called 'Lucy' — is one of the most recognisable instruments in blues.