KNOXVILLE – The legendary B.B. King will be performing Friday, January 8, 8 p.m. at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville. Tickets are $84.50 and $68, plus service fees, via the Tennessee Theatre box office, all Tickets Unlimited outlet, 865-656-4444, or online www.tennesseetheatre.com.

His reign as King of the Blues has been as long as that of any monarch on
earth. Yet B.B. King continues to wear his crown well. At age 84, he is
still light on his feet, singing and playing the blues with relentless
passion. Time has no apparent effect on B.B., other than to make him more
popular, more cherished, more relevant than ever. Don’t look for him in some
kind of semi-retirement; look for him out on the road, playing for people,
popping up in a myriad of T.V. commercials, or laying down tracks for his
next album. B.B. King is as alive as the music he plays, and a grateful
world can’t get enough of him.

For more than half a century, Riley B. King‹better known as B.B. King‹has
defined the blues for a worldwide audience. Since he started recording in
the 1940s, he has released over 50 albums, many of them classics. He was
born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near
Indianola. In his youth, he played on street corners for dimes, and would
sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to
Memphis, TN, to pursue his music career. Memphis was where every important
musician of the South gravitated, and which supported a large musical
community where every style of African American music could be found. B.B.
stayed with his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues
performers of his time, who schooled B.B. further in the art of the blues.

B.B.’s first big break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy
Williamson’s radio program on KWEM out of West Memphis. This led to steady
engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a
ten-minute spot on black-staffed and managed Memphis radio station WDIA.
“King’s Spot,” became so popular, it was expanded and became the “Sepia
Swing Club.” Soon B.B. needed a catchy radio name. What started out as Beale
Street Blues Boy was shortened to Blues Boy King, and eventually B.B. King.

In the mid-1950s, while B.B. was performing at a dance in Twist, Arkansas, a
few fans became unruly. Two men got into a fight and knocked over a kerosene
stove, setting fire to the hall. B.B. raced outdoors to safety with everyone
else, then realized that he left his beloved $30 acoustic guitar inside, so
he rushed back inside the burning building to retrieve it, narrowly escaping
death. When he later found out that the fight had been over a woman named
Lucille, he decided to give the name to his guitar to remind him never to do
a crazy thing like fight over a woman. Ever since, each one of B.B.’s
trademark Gibson guitars has been called Lucille.

Soon after his number one hit, “Three O’Clock Blues,” B.B. began touring
nationally. In 1956, B.B. and his band played an astonishing 342 one-night
stands. From the chitlin circuit with its small-town cafes, juke joints, and
country dance halls to rock palaces, symphony concert halls, universities,
resort hotels and amphitheaters, nationally and internationally, B.B. has
become the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years.

Over the years, B.B. has developed one of the world’s most identifiable
guitar styles. He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and
others, integrating his precise and complex vocal-like string bends and his
left hand vibrato, both of which have become indispensable components of
rock guitarist’s vocabulary. His economy, his every-note-counts phrasing,
has been a model for thousands of players, from Eric Clapton and George
Harrison to Jeff Beck. B.B. has mixed traditional blues, jazz, swing,
mainstream pop and jump into a unique sound. In B.B.’s words, “When I sing,
I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by
playing Lucille.”

In 1968, B.B. played at the Newport Folk Festival and at Bill Graham’s
Fillmore West on bills with the hottest contemporary rock artists of the day
who idolized B.B. and helped to introduce him to a young white audience. In
“69, B.B. was chosen by the Rolling Stones to open 18 American concerts for
them; Ike and Tina Turner also played on 18 shows.

B.B. was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received NARAS’ Lifetime
Achievement Grammy Award in 1987, and has received honorary doctorates from
Tougaloo(MS) College in 1973; Yale University in 1977; Berklee College of
Music in 1982; Rhodes College of Memphis in 1990; Mississippi Valley State
University in 2002 and Brown University in 2007. In 1992, he received the
National Award of Distinction from the University of Mississippi.

B.B. continues to tour extensively, averaging over 250 concerts per year
around the world. Classics such as “Payin’ The Cost To Be The Boss,” “The
Thrill Is Gone,” How Blue Can You Get,” “Everyday I Have The Blues,” and
“Why I Sing The Blues” are concert (and fan) staples. Over the years, the
Grammy Award-winner has had two No. 1 R&B hits, 1951’s “Three O’Clock
Blues,” and 1952’s “You Don’t Know Me,” and four #2 R&B hits, 1953’s “Please
Love Me,” 1954’s “You Upset Me Baby,” 1960’s “Sweet Sixteen, Part I,” and
1966’s “Don’t Answer The Door, Part I.” B.B.’s most popular crossover hit,
1970’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” went to No. 15 pop.

King’s 2008 release, One Kind Favor, won a Grammy for for Best Traditional
Blues Album.