When Rolling Stone reporter Jon Landau asked Albert King in 1968 who his guitar influences were, King replied, "Nobody. Everything I do is wrong." A pioneer of electric blues, King (who was left-handed) played a right-handed 1959 Gibson Flying V upside down, with the bass strings unconventionally facing the floor. He used an indecipherable secret tuning, hitting notes with his thumb. The six-foot-four, 300-pound King was able to bend notes farther and more powerfully than almost any other guitarist, and his records influenced a generation: Eric Clapton lifted the "Strange Brew" solo from King, and Duane Allman turned the melody of King's "As the Years Go Passing By" into the main riff of "Layla." Jimi Hendrix was star-struck when his hero opened for him at the Fillmore in 1967. "I taught [Hendrix] a lesson about the blues," said King. "I could have easily played his songs, but he couldn't play mine."
