Life and Legacy of B.B. King, The: A Mississippi Blues Icon


Book Description

Blues legend B.B. King spent his life sharing the music of his soul, which shone relentlessly through hardship and triumph alike. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, the man born Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned The King of the Blues. He never wavered from his vocation, even as he gathered up other musicians in his wake and melded them into the harmony of his animating passion. In this intimate portrait of King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members, offering readers an invaluable opportunity to feel like they know King too.




Life and Legacy of B. B. King


Book Description

This biography of the iconic blues musician features interviews with family members, fellow musicians, and those who knew his best. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned “The King of the Blues.” Never wavering from his vocation, King gathered other musicians together and melded them into the unique blues sound that would become his signature. In this intimate portrait of B. B. King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members. The Life and Legacy of B. B. King offers an intimate view of the man behind the music.




The Life and Legacy of B.B. King


Book Description

"Blues legend B. B. King spent his life sharing the music of his soul, which shone relentlessly through hardship and triumph alike. He never wavered from his vocation, even as he gathered up other musicians in his wake and melded them into the harmony of his animating passion. In this intimate portrait of King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members, offering readers an invaluable opportunity to feel like they know King too." --




King of the Blues


Book Description

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.”




The Mississippi Encyclopedia


Book Description

Recipient of the 2018 Special Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and Recipient of a 2018 Heritage Award for Education from the Mississippi Heritage Trust The perfect book for every Mississippian who cares about the state, this is a mammoth collaboration in which thirty subject editors suggested topics, over seven hundred scholars wrote entries, and countless individuals made suggestions. The volume will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. The book will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present. The volume contains entries on every county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists. Each entry provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. The Mississippi Encyclopedia also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. This book also includes many surprises readers can only find by browsing.




Moanin' at Midnight


Book Description

Howlin’ Wolf was a musical giant in every way. He stood six foot three, weighed almost three hundred pounds, wore size sixteen shoes, and poured out his darkest sorrows onstage in a voice like a raging chainsaw. Half a century after his first hits, his sound still terrifies and inspires. Born Chester Burnett in 1910, the Wolf survived a grim childhood and hardscrabble youth as a sharecropper in Mississippi. He began his career playing and singing with the first Delta blues stars for two decades in perilous juke joints. He was present at the birth of rock ’n’ roll in Memphis, where Sam Phillips–who also discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis–called Wolf his “greatest discovery.” He helped develop the sound of electric blues and vied with rival Muddy Waters for the title of king of Chicago blues. He ended his career performing and recording with the world’s most famous rock stars. His passion for music kept him performing–despite devastating physical problems–right up to his death in 1976. There’s never been a comprehensive biography of the Wolf until now. Moanin’ at Midnight is full of startling information about his mysterious early years, surprising and entertaining stories about his decades at the top, and never-before-seen photographs. It strips away all the myths to reveal–at long last–the real-life triumphs and tragedies of this blues titan.





Book Description




K&B Drug Stores


Book Description

The photographs found in this book, covering the 92-year life span of Katz & Besthoff and K&B Drug Stores, are from the personal collection of Sydney J. Besthoff III, past president and owner of K&B Drug Stores and grandson of Sydney J. Besthoff (co-founder with Gustave Katz).




The B.B. King Reader


Book Description

B.B. King is a national treasure. For more than five decades, he has been the consummate blues performer. His unique guitar playing, powerful vocals, and repertoire of songs have taken him from tiny Itta Bena, Mississippi, to worldwide renown. In this comprehensive volume, the best articles, interviews and reviews about B.B. King's life and career have been gathered. Learn how he first made his mark as a disc jockey in Memphis hawking "Pepticon" elixir and taking the moniker of the "Beale Street Blues Boy"; trace his early tours and recordings; see him be swept up in the blues revival; and finally, enjoy his fame as the greatest living exponent of the blues style.




The Blues Parade


Book Description

ON THE SEVENTH HOUR OF THE SEVENTH DAY,ONE-NOSE WILLIE HEARD PORKCHOP SAY:"THE GYPSY WOMAN TOLD ME'A CLOUD UP IN THE SKIESGON' PART JUST LIKE A CURTAINAND YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!'"And with the same rollin', rhymin' verse that's driven many a classic Blues song, "The Blues Parade" follows best buds Pork Chop and One Nose Willie's journey of discovery from the Mighty Tribes of Africa thru the Middle Passage, Emancipation, the Great Northern Migration and the British Invasion to the streets of Wang Dang Doodle City in a celebration of the language, legends and legacy of America's most resonant art form.Yes, the cloud DOES part like a curtain, revealing Captain Eddie Shaw's paper ship, from which, unrolling like a carpet, descends Beale Street. And down Beale Street, into the heart of a cheering Wang Dang Doodle City they roll: Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley?.WILD CATS WITH WILD NAMESGONE WILD ON GUITARS.LIKE A CIRCUS IN A GUMBOON A FERRIS WHEEL TO MARS.Grammy-Winner Terry Abrahamson draws on his life among the Blues greats to capture all the magic of the larger-than-life heroes who gave us Rock & Roll. Page after page, he weaves a broad and seamless tapestry rich with vibrant and engaging celebrations of history, Black studies, music, divergence of the English language, and Art as a Tool for Survival.WITNESS: Furry Lewis presented not just as a Blues singer/guitarist, but as a Memphis street sweeper, cueing a moment of reverent recognition forDr. King's involvement with the Memphis Sanitation Workers.WITNESS: Ruthie Foster's disrupting a plantation English class as the narrative explains:THE MIGHTY TRIBES OF AFRICATOOK EACH NEW WORD TO HEART.THEY'D LIST 'EM, THEN THEY'D TWIST 'EM,TURNIN' TALKIN' INTO ART."The Blues Parade" explodes with whimsy, color, music and a resonance that translates to virtually any medium, enlivens a cross-section of school curricula, and benefits from live interactive presentations of both "The Booksibition," - an art installation featuring blow-ups of the 32 pages, with read-along study guides.