A minor · Camelot 8A · 87 BPM
The Thrill Is Gone
by B.B. King
- 87
- BPM
- A minor
- Key
- 8A
- Camelot
- 70
- Danceability
- 9
- Acousticness
Bill Szymczyk produced B.B. King's recording of "The Thrill Is Gone", and that connection ended up shaping the Eagles' career. The fact that Szymczyk had worked on King's version of the song was one of the things that attracted the Eagles to hiring him as their producer. Riley B. King, known professionally as B.B. King, had earned the nickname "The King of the Blues" through a sophisticated soloing style built on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking. AllMusic called him the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century.
King's song left a mark on Glenn Frey in particular. According to Eagles' guitarist Don Felder, Frey loved "The Thrill Is Gone", and while working to perfect a particular sound he wanted, he piped up with the idea of calling a new song "After the Thrill Is Gone". Frey and Don Henley knew King's song and wrote theirs to explore the aftermath, asking what comes next once the thrill is gone. Frey wrote most of the verses and Henley most of the bridges.
King kept performing at a relentless pace long after the song made him famous. He appeared at more than 200 concerts a year on average into his 70s, and in 1956 alone he played 342 shows. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
The Thrill Is Gone runs at 87 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.76 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 690 ms. It is in A minor, Camelot 8A, which shares its notes with C major and mixes cleanly with D minor and E minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.