B.B. King’s racial odyssey

B.B. King has seen changes he would never have dared imagine, says Mick Brown in the London Daily Telegraph. The last of the great bluesmen was born in the segregated South 83 years ago and grew up on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. Early in his career, he played in roadhouses and black theaters on what was known as the “chitlin’ circuit.” He didn’t perform before a white audience until 1967. But when he arrived at the Fillmore West in San Francisco that year, he knew the country’s racial divide was beginning to crumble. “When we pulled up, I saw all these long-haired kids outside. I thought, My agent’s made a mistake. So I sent my road manager to get the producer. And Bill Graham came out and said, ‘No, B, this is the right place.’ I was like a cat with seven dogs around him! I was nervous because I’d never played to people like this before.” King was so scared he fortified himself with a half-pint of liquor. “Then finally we get onstage and Bill said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen’—and it got so quiet you could hear a pin drop—‘I bring you the chairman of the board, B.B. King.’ They all stood up and yelled. I had a 45-minute set, and they must have stood up three or four times. That’s the night I saw the difference.”

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