Blues Planet
The Blues is life and life is the Blues. It covers from the first cry of a newborn baby to the last gasp of a dying man. It's the very existence."
All is said in this beautiful Victoria Spivey book : "The Blues is Life".

Blues... BB King was the embodiment of it. He has just left us recently, the Blues planet is in mourning.

The bluesman has the peculiarity to live the blues with two additional supports that are his voice and his instrument. Luckily the guitar is a polyphonic instrument, a single guitar can replace a whole orchestra. BB King made of it the striking demonstration during decades. "Man needs passion to exist" Goethe has told us... "Baby Blues"* has been the perfect illustration of blues for decades. In blues, not only we improvise our life, but in addition we improvise our music, all our music. Since its beginning nearly two centuries ago, the blues gradually became a simple sung literature, a philosophy at large, an art of living that rock music will spread later on all over the globe.
Harmonica will only take part in it at the end of the 19th century, adding something more to the range of bluesmen, receiving immediately a great success. Harmonica is now known as the "Mississipi Saxo".

In Memphis, in Baele street, people can discover a worshipped place, the "BB King Blues Club". Magical space where BB King and its predecessors have long since left an indelible print. It was proclaimed "National Historic Landmark" in 1966.
Like on Hollywood boulevard in Los Angeles, there is in Beale street a "Walk of Fame" where you can find, on paving stones, the names of BB King, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, the King Elvis... recently Pete Pedersen and many others.

We leave BB King Blues club hearing and palate completely satisfied, a place where blues and "lips making ribs" (Creole BBQ) are blending wonderfully.
BB King unfortunately died... Lucille, his guitar, henceforth is orphan.

Jean Labre
*His nickname since his childhood
Published May 20th 2015