King of Blues

Saturday, Nov. 11, 2000 | 4:04 a.m.

B.B. King, a Las Vegas resident for more than 23 years, needs no introduction anywhere.

The 75-year-old Blues musician and his guitar, Lucille, will be at the Stardust's Wayne Newton Theater for a three-night engagement beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday.

Then he heads for New York City for an engagement at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, a franchise business he recently entered with Danny Bensusan, founder of the Blue Note.

The flagship club in New York opened in June. There are others in Memphis and Universal City, Calif. At least seven more are planned.

King, on the road almost 250 days a year, gets paid for the use of his name on the clubs, but has nothing to do with running the business. He's too busy, singing the blues all the way to the bank.

Las Vegas Sun: Why do you work so hard? What's driving you? You could retire and take life easy.

B.B. King: I'm still enjoying it. I don't ever intend to stop. I could have retired a long time ago. I could just take off but I like having my band together, and they want to work. They've got families, some have kids and some have kids in college and so on. Of course, when you do that, you've got to pay the bills -- got to get the grits, too. I've got that contagious disease, "I need more."

Sun: You grew up poor on a plantation. Do the memories of those days have anything to do with why you work so hard at your age?

B.B.: I don't think being on the plantation motivated me to do this, with the exception of wanting to do something different. I think it's sort of like a person who goes into sports -- boxing, basketball or football. They want to do things to make life better for them and their families and their friends near them. That's what the plantation did for me. It made me want to do other things to better my condition.

I don't hate farming. It's a type of life that's good. We need it. Farm life is great. It taught me a lot -- a whole lot -- about things to come. It helps me today as far as working is concerned. I learned that on the plantation.

Sun: You may have won more awards than any singer in history. Did success come quickly?

B.B.: I wish I could have been successful from the beginning. I did not succeed at all at first. I stayed on the plantation until I was 18, then in '43 I went into the Army. When I got out I started thinking I could make a living as a musician, so I went to Memphis and got a job on a radio station, at first singing and playing the guitar live. Then they trained me to be a disc jockey. I was there from '49 to '55 as a disc jockey. My music started during that time.

Sun: What was your first record that showed promise?

B.B.: Around '50 or so "3 O'clock Blues" became a hit, but it was with a small company where 100,000 copies of anything was a hit for them. But when I left and went to a big company, like ABC, 100,000 was just a general release for them.

Sun: You used to be on the road more than 280 days a year. You've released at least one album a year for the past 50 years. How do you keep up the pace?

B.B.: I've slowed down some. I'm not on the road as much. I've been doing this over 50 years, so you learn a lot. As I get older, my knees are not so good so I don't stand up and play much. I usually sit down and play now, but I'm quite energetic even being seated. I love what I'm doing and I have fun doing it.

I've played 88 countries around the world. It's fun.

Sun: What do you do on the rare occasions when you aren't working?

B.B.: I like to go home. I love to come to Vegas. Anytime I'm in this area, anytime I have a day off, I fly home. Most people, when they get off they like to go on vacations, go some place. I like to go home. I can get in my old sky-blue El Camino and go out around the mountains and look at nature. I look at the wildlife and stuff. That's one of my favorite things when I come home.

Sun: Why did you decide to make Las Vegas your home?

B.B.: I think Vegas is a nice city, a nice place to live. A lot of entertainers live there. I used to have a contract with the Las Vegas Hilton, playing two, three weeks at a time. I fell in love with the city. I've been here ever since.

Sun: Do you go to a lot of shows?

B.B.: When I'm there and have the time, I like to go to the shows. I like some of all of it. I go from one place to the other. I like music of all kinds, which is another thing about Las Vegas I like -- you have a choice. I'm a person who likes some of all of it. I'm a real big fan of oldies-but-goodies. When they first came out I didn't have the money to buy them and so didn't pay that much attention to them. Now I do.

Sun: What about the young musicians out there today? Isn't their success more a result of marketing than talent?

B.B.: Marketing could be part of it, but we're all out there breathing. We all want to live and make it.