Can we say thank you to B B King for one helluva run.

He’s still with us but in hospice.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

What, did B B King pass away or something?

You’ll always be The Man, B B !!!

Thanks for adding a bit of color to this ” Mean old world”.

His touring schedule was amazing, for decades. My parents went to see him 20 years ago at some little place in a medium-sized city. I was surprised he would bother but they said he was doing 200 shows that year.

I found Live at the Regal at the record store when I was a teenager. I wore out the LP in college. I still listen to it on MP3.

Thanks, B.B.!

When I was a little boy, BB King would regularly come with his band to Omaha. They would play at the M&M lounge (seedy bar) on 24th st. & room at Miss Pinkston’s boarding house a block away. They toured in a raggedy smoking bus that broke down so frequently that I personally witnessed the great one and his musicians strolling down the street with their instruments. They would lope leisurely along toward the rooming house cigarettes dangling, with the resigned casual air that only comes from routine. The “King” would hit town, and everyone knew he was coming because cardboard posters would advertise the upcoming show in every black owned business (and most of the others) on the Near North Side. I sit here thinking. “If only your 7 year old self had collected those 15 years of posters and held onto them.” But like most of America, I hadn’t a clue as to just how great the man or how significant his music. In the Summer you could actually stand in front of the bar, peer through the big wide window and see as well as hear the entire show. The man himself would be going at it 4 feet from the window. It was incredible, the unknown greats that regularly played the M&M. Howlin Wolf or Eddie “Clean Head” Vinson, for the price of a beer, you could sit close enough to those legends for the sweat of their exertions to fall on you. Now there’s a thought. But I was a kid and clueless.

OOPS! It’s not B. B. King who’s dead, although he is in hospice care. It is actually Ben E. King who passed away.

Don’t feel like a fool. Even the great Greta Van Susteran was confused!

Hey they all look (and sound?) alike.

Hahahahahaha