King Of The Blues |
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BOOK
REVIEW by Willard Manus Five biographies of the blues icon B.B. King have been published in recent years. But the latest, KING OF THE BLUES-THE RISE AND FALL OF B.B. KING, is by far the best. Written by Daniel De Vise and published by Atlantic Monthly Press, it is exhaustively researched and vibrantly told. Born in the
Mississippi Delta to a share-cropping family, King managed to escape poverty
and discrimination, thanks to his musical gifts, which were honed in black
church and juke joints where bluesmen like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie
Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson plied their trade. Although King wasnt
a prodigy, he practiced diligently on the guitar and sang when he could
with a local group, The Famous St. John Gospel singers. The blues meant money, King recalled. And money meant a better life. Powerful, warring impulses of faith, ambition and lust churned within Kings soul. And then came an epiphany: God has the blues. Look at the story of Jesus, he would later explain. Ill be damned if that aint a blues story. And Ill be damned if Jesus wasnt a bluesman. Wandering around. No home. No money. Yet all that time talking about love. But not everyones loving on him...Sitting in that garden, he knows the worlds about to do him in. Thats the blues, son. The sure-enough blues. In 1946, King was still only a weekend musician; he supported himself by driving a farm tractor. But when he accidentally backed the tractor into a barn wall and snapped off the exhaust pipe, he panicked, fearing the bossmans reaction. Hed have to labor for years to pay him back. I didnt know what to do, he said. I didnt know what to tell him. I didnt know anything. So I just started to walking. Its
fair to say King kept walking the rest of his life, starting with a stay
in Memphis, where he soon had his own show on WDIA, an African-American
radio station. As a d.j. he played the music of Charlie Brown, Dinah Washington,
Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker. Before long he was playing and singing
his own songs on the show, and touring locally as well. Hit records and fame came next. King became wealthy, only to gamble away a big portion of his earnings. He was addicted to gambling-and women. Although he married early and swore that he loved his wife, King fathered a dozen or more children with an assortment of women-all of whom he acknowledged and provided for over the years. To maintain that expensive lifestyle, King toured 300 days a year and recorded a staggering number of albums, many of which made the charts and won a slew of major awards. King was also tapped by the US government to tour Africa, Japan and the Soviet Union as a good-will ambassador. Then came invitations to sing at Federal prisons, the White House, and in major Hollywood films (such as Blues Brothers). King was even invited back to his formerly segregated hometown of Indianola, where he was hailed as a native son and asked to cut the ribbon on a blues museum named after himself.
King had battled weight gain since middle age. By 1990 he weighed over 300 pounds, far too heavy for a man of five ten. To control his diabetes and weight problem, he turned to the Pritikin diet and gradually began to slim down. That gave him another twenty years of life and work, though with ever-decreasing energy and vitality. He died on April 30, 2015; his last thoughts were about going back on tour. Its all there in KING OF THE BLUES, all the ups and downs, good times and bad times, in the life of the blues icon, B.B. King. As Stewart Levine, B.B.s producer said, His legacy is that he introduced America to its own music. And thats about as big a legacy as you could have. |