I had listened to an interview on Questlove’s podcast (sadly i can’t recall who it was but it was a white guitarist) and he mentions how lightning fast BB King can change broken strings on a guitar without looking or missing a beat. He also mentioned how he accidentally broke one of BB King’s guitars because his crew left it on stage ahead of time, guy breaks a string and says fuck it and grabs the guitar and promptly ruins it because the guitar was delicate 
oops.
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SRV like a lot of others kept the bridge flat to the body like it’s a hardtail strat. Break a string and you’re still close to being in tune on the other strings.
Hendrix tuned his guitar down a step or a half step, partially to make it easier for him to sing some songs, but also because he couldn’t afford to break strings with all the whammy bar stuff he did. Break a string on a strat with the trem-bridge engaged and you’re immediately wayyyyy out of tune.
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Am I drunk, or did BB wind the headstock end FIRST, and then connect the string to the bridge? What the…?
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Sure did. I assume it’s so he didn’t have a bunch of string sticking off the top. He knows how many turns puts the ball end in the right place, hooks it on the bridge with a quick glance, then a few turns of the machine head and he’s back in business. You need the right kind of bridge, of course.
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Do they make a tune-o-matic bridge with a tailpiece you don’t have to string thru?
Huh. Looks like they did-- watch this guy cut off the strings early in the video-- they pop out of the tailpiece.
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Wow, can’t imagine how that string stays secure in an unlocked bridge, but if it worked for BB, it works!
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Very impressive replacing a string during a song, but come ON, BB didn’t try to play afterwards. And as such, he should have just handed it off to a roadie anyway.
Disclaimer: 90% of my SiriusXM consumption is the BB King Bluesville channel.
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I was wondering how he was going to tune during the song.
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Easily done with a pass through tuner that allows to exclude the output for the necessary time, or with a “wireless” one (usually clamped on the headstock) which picks up the strings vibrations through contact with the body, so the guitar volume can be set to zero while tuning.
The main problem with changing strings during gigs is that a fresh string needs some burn-in for its tuning to become reliable, that’s where roadies are handy, since they will not only change the string but also pull and retune it until it becomes stable.
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He didn’t have a roadie. Never had one, although a second Lucille should probably been sitting there ready to go. He didn’t play because there was no way for that string to stay in tune without stretching it a number of times.
Well, now it’s an acoustic guitar, so what’s your point? 
Smooth. With a capital Smoo.
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SRV…and BB did a lot of things very, very well. I never got to see BB, but seeing SRV and Double Trouble in concert in Austin once upon a time is one of my favorite memories.
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