Blues musician B.B. King turned 80 in September, and The B.B. King Treasures: Photos, Mementos &and Music from B. B. King’s Collection is a warm tribute to this legendary American performer who, with guitar Lucille, has traveled the road entertaining audiences for nearly 60 years. Born Riley B. King to sharecropper parents in Itta Bena, Mississippi, King’s lived a real rags-to-riches story. But the book is also a love song to the blues, and a testament to hard work and respect for others. Says a colleague, “if we had pictures instead of words in the dictionary, under the word Ôgraciousâ’ would have to be B.B. King.” B.
B. King Treasures is a montage scrapbook that traces King’s first Delta days through his musical odyssey to Memphis, Chicago and into mainstream America. It is an intriguing collection of biography, interviews, photography, a CD and memorabilia (reproductions inserted in the book via parchment sleeves), such as concert promotional ephemera, contracts and booking sheets there’s even B.B.’s business card, which proclaims “Blues is King King is Soul.” Though B.
B. King Treasures is mainly King’s biography, the book reveals tangential stories of the cutthroat music business, of struggles for racial equality and of the spread of the blues into the musical mainstream and across the globe. Co-author Dick Waterman, who has known King for nearly 40 years, marvels at his tenacity, about which has been said: “He’s just a tough, tough dude.”
