I read an article recently with BB King who was saying he had had many "Lucilles" over the years, and changed guitars frequently but when he listened to the recordings realized the sound never changed and was him not the guitar itself.

Incidentally I remember seeing BB King live in Melbourne, Australia almost 20 years ago and his tone was much better than I had heard on his recordings so don't consider his recording to be entirely indicative of how he really sounds. BB King is a gentleman and a true artist. He pulled the best sound from a Gibson ES-335 and Fender Twin Reverb than I have heard before.

Incidentally I have seen both Joe Zawinul ( with Weather Report ) amd Jan Hammer ( with Jeff Beck ) and yes they both have a very unique touch. The technology they used at the time had little to do with the music they were creating. They would have played great music irregardless of the keyboards they were using.

Nigel, I agree that BB is a very classy gentleman and when I heard him about two years ago I was pleased with how much better he sounded live than on record, both his tone and his lines had much more life. I wasn't slamming him about his dead strings, that was what He said in an interview about never changing strings, and on most of his records his strings sound very dead to me.
Did you catch Weather Report during the Jaco years? I did, and they were beyond belief! Zawinul,Shorter,Acuna,Erskine,amazing artists every one----and then,right at his prime, before He self destructed----Jaco Pastorius was taking the bass to another universe. My mouth was hanging open the entire night! From king of the world to sleeping on the streets to dead in the gutter in such a short time is the stongest anti-drug message of our time. Such a waste. But for a while he burned so very bright..

(Mike, I think that your thread has been hijacked)
Bill

Peter Green was at the gig in body but not necessarily in spirit for 100% of the time! He's been back on the road for a few years having spent many years previously being damn near a hermit as a result of (drug assisted?) nervous problems. He can still play like a god when he wants to but he looked and acted like an even better advert for drug avoidance than Ozzy Osbourne!