consider retirement in the 1980s, but he continued regular tours and appearances at blues festivals, using a customized Greyhound tour bus with "I'll Play The Blues For You" painted on the side. His final album, Red House (named after the Jimi Hendrix song) was released in 1991. At the time of his death, he was planning a tour with B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland. Bland told the Associated Press, "there was never any type of jealousy when we three worked together on a package. One just pushed the others." Death King died of a heart attack on December 21, 1992, in his Memphis home. His final concert had been in Los Angeles two days earlier. He was given a funeral procession with the Memphis Horns playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" and was buried in Paradise Gardens Cemetery in Edmondson, Arkansas, near his childhood home. King was survived by his wife, Glendle; two daughters, Evelyn Smith and Gloria Randolph; a son, Donald Randolph; a sister, Elvie Wells; eight grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. Artistry Instruments King's first instrument was a diddley bow. Next, he built himself a cigar box guitar, and eventually he bought a Guild acoustic guitar. The instrument he is usually associated with is a 1958 Gibson Flying V. In 1974 he began using a Flying V built by Dan Erlewine, and after 1980 he also played one built by Bradley Prokopow. After 1987, Albert played a custom Archtop Flying V, built by Tom Holmes upon commission from Billy Gibbons, it was given to King for his 65th birthday. Around 2017, this guitar was sold by Gruhn Guitars to an unknown collector. King was left-handed, but usually played right-handed guitars flipped over upside-down. He used a dropped open tuning, possibly more than one, as reports vary: (C#-G#-B-E-G#-C#) or open E-minor (C-B-E-G-B-E) or open F (C-F-C-F-A-D). Steve Cropper (who played rhythm guitar on many of King's Stax sessions), told Guitar Player magazine that King tuned his guitar to C-B-E-F#-B-E (low to high). The luthier Dan Erlewine said King tuned to C-F-C-F-A-D with light-gauge strings (0.050", 0.038", 0.028", 0.024" wound, 0.012", 0.009"). The lighter-gauge strings, and lower string tension of the dropped tuning, were factors in King's string-bending technique. For amplification, King used a solid-state Acoustic amplifier, with a speaker cabinet containing two 15-inch speakers and a horn ("which may or may not have been operative"). Later in his