JACKSON, Miss. — A guitar given to B.B. King for his 80th birthday has sold for $280,000 at an auction of items from the blues legend’s estate.
Julien’s Auctions says King often used the black Gibson ES-345 prototype that was one of several guitars he called “Lucille.” Early in his career, King ran back into a burning nightclub to rescue his guitar, and he later learned the fire started when two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille.
The estate auction took place in Los Angeles on Saturday, a few days after what would have been King’s 94th birthday.
The 15-time Grammy winner was 89 when he died in 2015 in Las Vegas. He is buried in the small town of Indianola, Mississippi, near the community where he grew up picking cotton.
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