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B.B. King's Birthday Bash (11/27/95)
Blues legend B.B. King's 70th birthday was celebrated in an all star tribute at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis on October 27, 1995. The celebration featured guitar performances and jam sessions with Willie Nelson, Buddy Guy, Michael McDonald formerly of the Doobie Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Bobby Bland, Isaac Hayes, Jeff Healey, Willie Mitchell, Keb Mo', and Rufus Thomas, among others. Guns `n Roses guitarist Slash did an all star finale with B.B. of "The Thrill is Gone," King's Grammy award winning 1970 single that is also listed among the greatest tunes of all time in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Birthday wishes were conveyed by telegram from President Clinton and by video from Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, and James Brown, among others. The Mayor of Memphis, W.W. Herenton, honored King's contributions during a private reception at LeBonheur Medical Center, and also sang the jingle for the Peptikon patent medicine commercial that King once did starting out as a DJ at WDIA a few blocks away.
Among the songs performed were "The Lowdown," by Boz Scaggs, "Walking the Dog," by Rufus Thomas, and "Stormy Monday," by Bobby Bland. Sam Moore of Sam and Dave did a medley including the foot stomping, "Soul Man," and Buddy Guy sang "Damn Right I've Got the Blues" and a rendition of King's hit song, "Sweet Little Angel."
Proceeds from the event are going in part to establish the B.B. King Sickle Cell Center at LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis. The center houses a program for research and treatment of sickle cell anemia, an inherited blood disease primarily affecting African American children.
Northwest Airlines was a corporate sponsor of the event and had a DC-9-30 specially painted with a "Lucille" guitar near the front with the words, "Happy Birthday B.B. King" and "Memphis Music" under the cockpit and the forward door. B.B. even autographed the jet. Other sponsors included Gibson Guitar, Pepsi, and several local radio stations.
Beale Street, where King was originally dubbed the Beale Street Blues Boy, later shortened to B.B., was shut down for a post-concert reception held at King's restaurant, B.B. King's Blues Club, also on Beale. B.B. King and the B.B. King Orchestra continued playing live before the very happy small club crowd until the early hours of the morning. Business People, old friends, blues fanatics, the young, old, and in between traveled from as far away as Brazil for the evening's events, as well as many states throughout the country.
It was in 1947 that a young Riley B. King hitchhiked to Memphis from Indianola, Mississippi with his guitar and $2.50. He played for change on the street corners at first and the rest is, well, legend. He came to Memphis because it was considered a mecca of important musicians and musical style at the time. Almost 50 years later, the "King of the Blues" returned home as a hero and a kind of mecca himself of the blues music tradition and was feted just as much for his charity, spirit and kindness by the thousands of fans and onlookers.
B.B. King makes a rare New York appearance at the world's premier blues club, the "Blue Note", January 16 through January 21, 1996.
B.B. King, the world's leading blues artist, known as the King of the Blues, can be seen in this intimate club in New York City for the first time ever, announces Sid Seidenberg, his long time manager.
B.B. King is being honored by his re-appointment as an Associate Fellow of Calhoun College. A Masters Tea is being scheduled where B.B. conducts an informal lecture and hosts class in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Board of Governors of the National Press Club invites B.B. King to speak at a luncheon in the press club ballroom during the first six months of 1996.
The audience will include up to 400 members and guests in the Press Club Ballroom as well as the listeners of the more than 400 stations of the National Public Radio network, viewers of the 4000 cable systems affiliated with C-SPAN, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network and users in over 30 countries of the Global Internet Computer Network. Federal News Service produces a transcript of the luncheon, which is sold along with audio and video copies for the benefit of the National Press Club Library.
MCA Music Entertainment Interactive will release in early January, 1996, a CD-ROM On the Road with B.B. King: An Interactive Autobiography. King gives an intimate look at his life, the people who influenced him, and the spirit his music embraces. King tells his story of how as the son of a poor delta sharecropper he became both an icon for blues music and an international ambassador of American culture. It includes a powerful combination of revolutionary interactive storytelling, fully navigable 3-D environments, navigable photo environments and the ever charismatic presence of B.B. King.
The CD includes over 40 classic song clips, more than 100 exquisite photos, and rare footage of B.B. and his friends, including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Jordan, Bonnie Raitt, T-Bone Walker, and U2.
The user becomes the driver of Big Red, B.B.'s legendary 1940's tour bus that takes you across seven decades, thousands of miles and through cyberspace. While enroute to each destination, this interactive autobiography brings the power of the illustrated novel to the storytelling tradition of the blues in five beautifully illustrated interactive stories of B.B.'s life told by B.B. himself.
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