Riley B. King was born to a family of poor sharecroppers on a plantation near the small town of Itta Bena in the Mississippi Delta. King's parents separated when he was only five and his mother took him to live in the nearby hill country in Kilmichael, Mississippi. By age seven he was doing the work of a grown man in the field. He was only nine when his mother died. He found inspiration in the music of the African American church. He dreamed of becoming a gospel singer and learned the rudiments of guitar from his preacher. He arranged with his employer to acquire his first guitar and taught himself further with mail-order instruction books.
In his teens, he dropped out of school and returned to the Delta, where he drove a tractor on a large plantation. On his off hours, he sang for small change on street corners in the nearby towns, sometimes visiting as many as four towns in a single evening. He also joined small gospel groups and urged the other singers to join him in leaving the plantation life for the opportunities of the city. In the end, he made the decision to go on his own, and hitchhiked to Memphis with $2.50 in his pocket. To a farm boy, the city was an intimidating sight, but he was able to stay for a time with his cousin, the well-known bluesman Bukka White, who helped him find his way in the city's music circles. After a year of playing on the street and learning from the other performers who gathered on Beale Street, he was given an opportunity to perform on the blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson's popular radio program. Soon he was playing regularly in local night clubs and was given a regular spot on a black-run radio station. As a radio personality he was known as the Beale Street Blues Boy, later shortened to "Blues Boy" King. He made his first recording in 1949 and released six singles before the year was out. He was signed to a long-term recording contract and began to play in the small-town cafes, juke joints, and country dance halls of the region, as far away as he could travel and still return in time for his radio program.
