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Fit for a King
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There is but one woman for this King - Lucille. He turns 83 in September, but that's no excuse for stopping any time soon. In fact, he has a new album coming out shortly before his birthday. Born Riley Ben King but the world knows his a BB. Since 1949 BB and his Gibson guitar Lucille, named for a woman two men were fighting over in a bar, have released over 100 albums during his career. This Mississippi boy picked cotton from the age of nine before playing guitar on street corners in Memphis. Between the release of his new album "One Kind Favor" and his birthday BB will dedicate a $15 million museum in his honor. The building where the museum is located once housed a cotton gin where a young BB worked.
BB admits that he is slowing down but not too much. A lisenced pilot King stopped flying at 75 when his manager, and the insurance company, told him he had to stop. Touring using two buses King performs around 150 shows each year. He lives in Las Vegas when he is not on the road. King, a diabetic, is a vegetarian, non smoker, and a non drinker who never made it past the eigth grade. King admits that his one regret is that he never finished high school and continued his education.
While he may not have finished his formal education King has accomplished quite a lot in his nearly 50 years of making music with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Endowmanet for the Arts Awards, and 14 Grammy Awards. He also owns blues clubs in New York, Orlando, Nashville, and Memphis. King was admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
King admits that there has been several times in his life that a woman said to him that its is either me or Lucille. As a result King has four sons and 11 daughters not all by the same woman and he has been married and divorced twice.
BB King and Lucille continue to entertain the world with blues that make you feel good.
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