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King of the Blues

The Rise and Reign of B. B. King

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend

"No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues."—President Barack Obama

"He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced."—Eric Clapton

Riley "Blues Boy" King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister's guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge.

King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago's Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color.

Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King's inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby "Blue" Bland simply called "the man."

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 26, 2021
      Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist De Vise (The Comeback) amply demonstrates his masterful storytelling and research skills in this definitive look at legendary blues musician B.B. King (1925–2015). Informed by his conversations with “dozens of surviving friends and relatives, bandmates and producers,” De Vise provides an intimate portrait of a cultural luminary “whose achievements transcended his genre.” Born into poverty on a Mississippi plantation in 1925, King fell in love with music at a young age, when the reverend of his church taught him the three guitar chords at the center of every blues song he would ever perform. In 1946, he left his life as a sharecropper and tractor driver to perform in Memphis, where he became a regional star before signing with a talent agent and touring internationally for more than 50 years. But even after finding fame, De Vise recounts, King endured his fair share of trials, including a fatal accident involving his tour bus that killed a truck driver, and money disputes with his business manager. These hardships, however, only serve to underscore the tenacity that led King to become “the greatest living guitarist” alive and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Even readers who aren’t fans of the blues will be engrossed by this nuanced look at an American icon. Agent: Deborah Grosvenor, Grosvenor Literary Agency.

    • Booklist

      October 15, 2021
      In this first authoritative biography, De Vis� chronicles the life of the bluesman who became king. Born Riley King in dirt-poor Mississippi, King's early life was less than regal. He barely knew his father, lost his mother at a young age, and worked picking cotton. As for many a future performer, music saved his life. Cousin to bluesman Bukka White, King would learn how to play the guitar in his own singular style on a Gibson that he lovingly called Lucille (readers will learn why). As De Vis� notes, King's story is also the story of the Great Migration, as millions of African Americans journeyed from the South to the so-called Promised Land, although instead of settling down in one city, King would "visit all, over and over again, for the rest of his life." In Memphis, his first big town, King played gigs and performed on the city's Black radio station and went on to pay his dues over and over again on his way to becoming a household name. De Vis� tells King's story in the context of his swirling times, intertwined with profiles of historic people and events musical and otherwise. A fine portrait of an iconic musician.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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