B.B. King's guitar strings: the Lucille rig, sourced

Documented string gauges and brands B.B. King used on Lucille, his Gibson ES-355 series. Gibson signature SEG-BBM (.010-.054 mostly nickel-plated) and earlier-era D'Addario light sets. With citations.

Solo / The B.B. King Blues Band · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team · 2026-04-30

B.B. King used Gibson's signature 'B.B. King Brite Wires' (Gibson SEG-BBM, .010, .013, .017p, .032, .045, .054), a near-light gauge nickel-plated steel set built around the .010 high E and a relatively heavy .054 low E. Always in standard E, always on a Gibson ES-345 or ES-355 he named Lucille (he named every guitar he owned Lucille after a Twist, Arkansas, club fire in 1949). King died in May 2015 at age 89; his sixty-year-plus catalog is among the most-cited blues canon in popular music.

At a glance

Role

Guitarist (historical)

Active

1949–2015

Based

Memphis, Tennessee / Las Vegas, Nevada

Genres

Affiliations

Gibson (Lucille signature ES-345 / ES-355, multi-decade endorsement)
Gibson (signature SEG-BBM Brite Wires string set)
B.B. King Blues Club & Grill (Memphis + multiple US cities)

Notable credits

Live at the Regal (1965)
Completely Well (1969, including 'The Thrill Is Gone')
L.A. Midnight (1972)
B.B. King in London (1971)
Riding with the King (with Eric Clapton, 2000)
One Kind Favor (2008)

Official media

Sourcing4 citations · reviewed 2026-04-30· by Change Your Strings editorial team

Who B.B. King was

Riley B. "B.B." King (September 16, 1925, Itta Bena, Mississippi, May 14, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada) was one of the most-influential blues guitarists in recorded history, a sixty-six-year career from his first single in 1949 through his retirement in 2014. The "B.B." was for "Blues Boy," the on-air name he used as a Memphis radio DJ at WDIA in the late 1940s. The signature instrument family, all named Lucille, were Gibson semi-hollow electrics, and the Lucille signature ES-355 has been a Gibson Custom Shop catalog model since the 1980s.

His 15 Grammy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2006), and his role in opening the door for the postwar electric-blues canon (Albert King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan) make him the load-bearing figure in the genre's modern history.

What he played

Gibson signature B.B. King Brite Wires (SEG-BBM, .010, .013, .017p, .032, .045, .054), nickel-plated steel, on a Gibson ES-355 Lucille tuned to E standard. Multi-decade Gibson endorsement relationship; the set has been in production for decades essentially unchanged. The unwound .017 third string is the bend-vocabulary detail, his butterfly vibrato sits across the third and second strings primarily, and a plain unwound third bends more freely and rings brighter than a wound third at comparable gauge.

His signal chain was simple: Lucille into a Lab Series L5 (the solid-state amp he used through most of the 1970s onward) or a Fender Twin Reverb in earlier eras. The reverb-rich, tube-warm or solid-state-clean tone with very little overdrive is the texture his lead vocabulary lives in, the saturation comes from picking attack into a clean amp, not from gain.

Why this fits the rig

The .010 high E with a wound .032 D and heavier .054 low E is a "wound-third light gauge" configuration with the third unwound. The set is asymmetric on purpose: light enough at the top for the butterfly vibrato (his most-imitated technical signature), heavy enough at the bottom for chord-anchor stability, and the plain third bends without the dead-feel of a wound third bend.

The semi-hollow ES-355 with closed F-holes resists feedback at high stage volume, which is why the signature Lucille has the closed body, his typical performance volumes would have made an open-F-hole 335 howl. The Vari-Tone six-position tone-shaping switch gave him pre-set tonal options for different songs without changing knob settings between numbers.

If you want this rig

The Gibson B.B. King Brite Wires set (SEG-BBM) is still in current production through Gibson Custom Shop. For a stock-shelf alternative, any nickel-plated steel light set with an unwound .017 or .018 third string approximates the tonal balance.

Ernie Ball

Regular Slinky (.010–.046)

Price tier: $

Why this one: Modern equivalent at the .010 light-gauge mark, with an unwound .017 third matching King's bend-vocabulary spec. Lighter low E than the Brite Wires (.046 vs .054), so the bottom isn't quite as anchored, but the top-three-strings feel matches.

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Frequently asked questions

What strings did B.B. King use?

Gibson's signature B.B. King Brite Wires (SEG-BBM): .010 high E, .013 B, .017 plain G (unwound third), .032 D, .045 A, .054 low E. Light high strings for bend-and-vibrato lead vocabulary, heavier low E for chord-anchor weight. Multi-decade signature relationship with Gibson; the set has been in production for decades.

Why is the third string plain (.017) instead of wound?

King's lead vocabulary leans heavily on the third string, his trademark butterfly vibrato is most expressive on the G string. A plain unwound .017 bends more freely and rings with brighter clarity than a wound third at comparable gauge. The plain third is the same trade-off SRV made on his GHS set; both blues guitarists with bend-heavy lead voice landed on the unwound third for the same reasons.

Why did King name his guitars Lucille?

From a 1949 incident at a Twist, Arkansas, dance club. Two men got into a fight over a woman named Lucille and knocked over a kerosene-burning barrel that started a fire. King had run outside with everyone else, then realized he'd left his guitar inside and ran back through the burning building to save it. He decided then to never fight over a woman, and named the guitar Lucille as a reminder. Every guitar he owned afterward was also named Lucille, so the name is for the family, not a single instrument.

Did King ever play with a pick?

Always with a pick (a Fender medium for most of his career, on the bridge pickup). His one-string-at-a-time, no-chord lead vocabulary is one of the most-distinctive guitar approaches in modern blues, he almost never strums a chord on a record. The vocabulary is built on single-note phrasing, butterfly vibrato, and the call-and-response interaction between his voice and Lucille's.

Was Lucille a 335, a 345, or a 355?

Different Lucilles, different eras. The 1980s onward signature production model is the ES-355 (with stereo wiring, Vari-Tone, and the closed F-holes of the signature Lucille). Earlier in his career he played 335s and 345s. The closed-F-hole detail of the modern Lucille is to reduce feedback at the high stage volumes he played; F-holes vent acoustic energy and feedback at gain, and the closed body kept Lucille controllable on stage.