re: Anyone else love blues, but dislike B.B. King?

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Would Rock and Roll even exist if there had been no BB King? He was the first to play single note style solos on the electric guitar around 1950, the few other blues players that had started to play electric just carried over the broken chord style they had used on the acoustic guitar. BB was ground zero, he came before rock and roll, Chuck Berry, the other "Kings", Clapton, Page, Beck, SRV, every rock and blues guitarist that has every existed has emulated BB King to some degree.

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BB King was certainly NOT the first to play single note solos. Not even friggin' close. Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker were ground zero for modern jazz/blues electric guitar playing. Charlie Christian was setting the standard in the late 30's in the jazz world, while T-Bone Walker was doing it on blues stages around the same time as Christian. In fact, BB King's earliest recordings are pretty much a knock off of Walker. Incidentally, those early T-Bone ripoffs just so happened to be BB Kings best guitar work. If King didn't have one of the best backing bands in the music industry, a lot of people would be disappointed by his guitar work.

I've had the pleasure of meeting BB King and he's absolutely a standup guy. He's always treated others with respect and dignity, unlike a lot of his blues contemporaries. And he IS a national treasure. But I don't think his guitar playing has been relevant to me in my lifetime.