🌎 Many towns and cities along the Blues Trail have planned festivals, exhibitions and live music to mark the 100th birthday of the homegrown musical legend.
The seemingly endless cotton fields and backroads between Jackson, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee, still echo with the sounds of the blues music that was born here. This year, from the city of Jackson, Mississippi to the bright lights of Memphis, Tennessee, destinations all along the Mississippi Blues Trail – a series of more than 200 roadside historical markers scattered across Mississippi and surrounding states – are celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of a homegrown musical legend.
Born 16 September 1925 on a Mississippi plantation, Riley B King – better known to the world as BB King – transformed himself from a sharecropper's son to a household name thanks to his gritty voice, soulful lyrics and distinctive string-bending guitar licks which would come to define the blues.
"His legacy as a musician was to ensure that the blues genre was well-known, respected and appreciated for what it was," said Malika Polk-Lee, executive director of the BB King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola, Mississippi. "Mr King was the blues ambassador to the world. Wherever he went, he represented that genre and did it to the best of his ability."
Lauded for his distinctive voice and intricate guitar playing, King won 15 Grammy Awards, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was inducted into both Rock & Roll and the Blues Halls of Fame. He is credited by many for helping to bring the blues to a global stage. However, even after international acclaim, King remained a champion of the Southern towns and cities that shaped him.
"He showed us a lot of love, and it continues to this day. We're just glad that he decided to make his way to Memphis and really join that music family that we had at the time," said Camille Connor, public relations manager at Memphis Travel. "He was a big part of opening [BB King's Blues Club and that] opening is really what reinvigorated Beale Street in Memphis. The Beale Street we see today, it really came back because of the draw of that club."
Here are four spots along the Blues Trail where visitors can celebrate BB King and the music he made famous:
No comments:
Post a Comment