Museum is a tribute to a King — B.B. King

updated 11:55 a.m. ET Oct. 3, 2008

INDIANOLA, Miss. - Translucent images of long ago, of black men and women, backs bent, picking cotton under an unforgiving sun, are artistically displayed on standing glass panels in a museum carved out of an old brick gin mill in the Mississippi Delta.

They’re a reminder of those who labored by day in a segregated society. But at night they escaped to Indianola’s Church Street to be entertained by a young man later known as B.B. King, who would throw his hat on the ground to catch coins as he conjured devil’s music from his guitar.

More than a half-century after King left Indianola in search of fame, the $15 million B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretative Center has opened in his hometown and is as much a tribute to him and his blues music as the culture that inspired it.

King’s museum is the latest attraction for the state’s blues tourism industry, which ironically thrives because so little has changed in the predominantly black Delta since King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson got their start there. Enthusiasts from across the nation and overseas vacation in the flatland region, known for fertile soil, its past racial strife and its lingering, unfathomable poverty.

King, an 83-year-old multiple Grammy winner who still plays about 120 gigs a year, says he’s honored the story of the blues is being told through the prism of his life.

“It’s going to be educational to people, young and old, because it’s going to talk about the origins of the blues. I’m just one who carried the baton because it was started long before me,” he says.

The details may be different, but the narrative of his life is similar to blues musicians who came before him.

He was born poor and black as Riley B. King in 1925. His parents split, leaving his grandmother to raise him before she died while he was still a young boy. He grew up, and as most blacks did in the Delta, he got a string of plantation jobs. His last was at the cotton gin in Indianola. Somewhere in between, he began developing his playing style, described by some as a mix of Delta, Memphis and Texas sounds.

King started with gospel, but he noticed the spirituals drew more pats than tips at his perch on Church Street.

“I made more Saturday evening than I did all week driving a tractor,” King says.

He became known as the Beale Street Blues Boy and then had the nickname Blues Boy, which he shortened to B.B. His career took off in 1948 after performing on a radio program in West Memphis, leading him on a path that would make him an international icon and put him in a class by himself as the only living blues artist with his own museum.

Matthew S. Gunby / AP B.B. King is greeted by media and visitors during a media day at the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

With its sleek, linear design, the 20,000-square-foot museum carved out of the old cotton gin is a convergence of old and new. A touch-screen interactive allows visitors to choose topics of interest, ranging from King’s childhood to facts about the Delta Flood of 1927. Music lessons are given through another interactive computer program with King instructing on a video as visitors finger chords on a guitar.

Elsewhere, vinyl blues records by Bobby Blue Bland and Blind Lemon, are hung near decades-old, yellowing contracts signed by musicians, who are now largely forgotten. A Panoram Soundies nearby broadcasts a Cab Calloway performance.

The museum also houses rare photos of Elvis Presley, King’s draft card and, of course, Lucille, the storied guitar King used on such hits as “The Thrill Is Gone,” “To Know You Is to Love You” and Sneakin’ Around.”

The significance of the museum in the blues world cannot be overstated, says Mark Camarigg, publications manager of Living Blues Magazine, believed to be one of the oldest blues magazines in the United States.

“You can’t overestimate his impact and what he represents. He’s virtually transcended blues music in a lot of people’s minds. He’s on the level of a Sinatra or Willie Nelson,” Camarigg says. “Because of his age, it’s a great way for people to get a connection to him. Other than Robert Johnson, he’s probably the most important person in blues music.”

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