The True Blues Man Is Gone : B.B. King
It's a sad day in the music business and a rainy day here in Phoenix.
It makes the mood of this news very sad, legendary blues man
B.B. King passe on last night at age 89. 4 months and 2 days shy of his 90th birthday.
I know all of us agree he ws a legend and I could go on about his career & life but I think most of us know this too. So let me tell you about how I 'almost' got to see this legend 'live' .
In 1987 ,at age 19 ,I had the oppotunity to see B.B. King and missed it.
On December 19th ,1987 I was one of the lucky thousands
who got to see U2 for $5 on the last leg of their Joshua Tree tour.
B.B. King was the opening act and I had bought my ticket at what was
then known as "Bill's Records" and the tickets were inexpensive because they were a 'filming voucher' aka we the public say O.K. to being filmed.
The concert was at the ASU campus's Sun Devil Stadium and part
of the filming for the Rattle & Hum documentary ,released the next year.
Well ,I departed work late & took off but ,got stuck in downtown Phoenix
(17 miles away). It was now getting late and on Saturday ,downtown was pretty empty but luckily ,I was able to flag down a cab & get to Tempe.
....but ,I got there too late to see B.B. King. My best guess is he'd stopped his set possibly just 10 to 15 minutes before.
A chance to see a blues music legend missed.
The U2 show was great of course but not knowing a lot about him then ,I didn't know at the time how important seeing & hearing his music 'live' could have been. I'd only heard about him less than 2 years before.
I am glad to say I made up for it by collecting a great deal of his music and the music of course ws ,is and always will be great. To B.B. ,if you can see this where you are ,I'm sorry I missed you that night. I know it would have been something I'd never forget.
Peculiar co-incidence...it was overcast and a little rainy that day too.
RIP B.B. King
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"A knight of the road,going back to a place where he might get warm."  - Borderstone
Last edited by Borderstone; 05-15-2015 at 07:08 PM.
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