Tony Russell: BB King, who has died aged 89, was the most influential blues musician of his generation and the music’s most potent symbol. He represented the blues as Louis Armstrong once represented jazz, a single performer who could nevertheless stand, and speak, for the whole genre. Although much of his work, and arguably nearly all the best of it, was firmly within the discipline of the blues, King was unfailingly open-minded and interested when he found himself in other settings, bridging musical and cultural differences with affability and skill untainted by self-importance. More than 50 years ago the death of Big Bill Broonzy prompted writers to speak of “the last of the bluesmen”: it was premature then, as it would be to say it now, but it is hard to imagine any future blues artist matching King’s sway, in a career spanning 65 years, over musicians by the thousand and audiences by the million.