[orchestral music] [upbeat music] - Hello, welcome to Faces.

I'm Ruth Campbell.

Tonight we have a very, very special program for you.

Mississippi is known for the contributions of its natives, and particularly in the field of music.

One such person is the legendary B.B.

King.

Tonight, Faces brings you a mini special on the King of the Blues, B.B.

King.

[upbeat Blues music] [guitar solo] [song ends] B.B.

King belongs to the world.

Yet each summer, he comes home to Indianola, heart of the Mississippi Delta.

In June 1983, Faces joined him on tour to take a look at a day in the life of B.B.

King.

[singing] ♪♪ - How it came about.

My mother told me that she came from the hills, where we used to call up around Houston, West Point, Mississippi, up in that area.

And she came down to visit her uncle, which had recently moved to Itta Bena.

And when she came down to visit her uncle, she met my father down there and she married him while she was down there.

And they lived together until I was about four, about four years old, then they separated.

And when they did, she then moved back to the hills.

Anyway, she took me there with her to live with her mother.

And of course, her mother was working for a family at that time called the Cotledge family.

And she and I lived with her mom.

And she died like, uh... She died when I was about nine.

And my grandmother, her mother, died the next year.

So the little house that we lived in, I kept living there and working for the Cotledge family.

And of course, my chores were to milk cows, I think I milked ten in the morning, ten at night, so 20 cows a day.

A lot of my relatives and friends was in the Sanctified Church of God in Christ.

So I became a member myself.

And also during that time, I was singing with a quartet called the Elkhorn Jubilee Singers.

We found that to use the guitar, to tune the group would be something like a group called the Golden Gate Quartet.

So we wanted to be like them.

The preacher in the Sanctified Church, which was my uncle's brother-in-law, played guitar.

They used to let me fool with the guitar a little bit.

And the story-- this is kind of wishy washy, but I hope I can make sense to you.

Used to be that when the preacher would come over to visit, all the kids wait until the adults finished dinner on Sundays, and then the kids would go eat.

So usually when the preacher, Reverend Archie Fair would come to visit my uncle, I would be there.

They always would lay the guitar on the bed.

So while they went to have dinner, I then would get on the bed and fool with the guitar.

So finally they caught me one day, and instead of scolding me, like I thought they would have done, he showed me three chords on it and that started me to want to play.

While living at the same little house with the Cotledge family, I found a gentleman that had a guitar and he wanted to get rid of it.

So I asked my boss if he would get it for me.

It cost $15, and that's how much I was making a month.

I made $15 a month working there.

And he said yes.

So he got it for me, and I remember paying and $7 and a half, which was half of my month's salary the first month and paid him the other.

And that's how I got my first guitar and that's how it started.

If you listen to Gospel and you listen to Soul music, it'’s only the lyrics is different, mostly.

The feeling is practically the same.

And that was the same feeling that I had in those days.

When I sang of heavenly bodies, I was singing Gospel.

I sang of earthly ones, I was singing the Blues.

[laughs] It wasn't very hard.

I get the same feeling, or pretty near.

In other words, it's very uplifting, a very good feeling.

Let's face it, Blues was started during hard time, of course.

But everything you cry about don't mean that, when you stop crying, you feel the same way.

So same thing with Blues.

You sing Blues, maybe, when you are blue, but it don't make you bluer.

That's kind of a relief.

It's kind of like a relief valve.

It's letting some of the steam off.

And of course, now, I think it's been thumbs down on Blues simply because this was a root of music that was started by black people.

So it's been, gosh, they used to use the word "“reals"”.

Black people used to use the word, "“Don't sing them '‘reals'’ in here"”.

And the "“reals"” means "“truth"”.

It's telling a story, a true, true story.

A lot of times people say, well, you're not singing... it'’s not the urban Blues.

That's not Mississippi Blues, it's not Delta Blues.

Everybody puts a label on it.

And I finally come out saying it's B.B.

King Blues.

[singing] [playing] - He'’s just down to earth.

And he seem to can understand you.

If he have something you want, he is not the person that you hear do all that talking.

He'’ll listen.

That's what count: to listen to people sometime, you know.

What happened when he first started singing the Blues, he was ashamed of the Blues.

He had a feeling inside that he wasn't going to make it, you know, with the Blues.

And he just had that and that's why he would always close his eyes.

At least that's what he told me.

When he started singing the Blues, he just feel like, you know, weren'’t nobody gonna accept him.

I feel like it was more because once was singing gospel songs and then turned to the Blues, you know, you have a little something deep inside there that'’s making you feel like you're doing wrong.

- And so... in Kilmichael, befohre he left and went to his father.

And when he left and went to his father that broke our singing up.

And when he came here, we started again with the St. John Gospel Singers, and it consisted of John Matthews, O.L.

Matthews, which were brothers, Riley King, and Burkett Davis.

And we sung together, oh, maybe 10 years.

But we used to sing in quartet, he could sing a solo, and we didn'’t hardly get to sing much more than cause he would shout the whole time, singing solo and playing his guitar.

What really happened when he left, he went to Memphis.

They made him a disc jockey on WDIA and he was playing Blues and what have you.

Matter of fact, this is where he get his name.

I guess you already know that: B.B.

King from Beale Street, Blues Boy.

And that's where he really went out playing the Blues.

[slow blues song] [singing] [audience cheers] [singing continues] - I think that people are like a strong, stiff drink.

[laughing] When I see the audience, that's my motivation, I think.

I don't know.

I want so much to make people happy.

This is not a hard-luck or down story, but from the very beginning, to be a Blues singer, a person in this kind of music, wasn't the most internationally popular thing to do.

And of course, I've tried so hard to please people.

For years, I've wanted people to like me.

I'’ve wanted people to accept me as an artist, and not because of what I look like, but because of my talent.

I felt that I had talent that would merit what I felt that people would want out of an entertainer, and that always, it seems, it hasn't been enough, seem like.

It's always been... to give you a for instance, I was in Chicago once and I was on a show, a jazz show where there was many, many great names.

I think Sarah Vaughan, I believe.

Oh, I believe Cannonball Adderley and quite a few other people.

It was a big show.

But when it came down to me, the emcee said, "“Now, ladies and gentlemen, you can get ready for your collard greens and cornbread and watermelon, because here is B.B.

King!

"” --And chitlins, he went on to mention.

And that didn't really knock me out at all.

So I remember when I got off, I didn't try to be really facetious, but I told them, I said, "“You know, I know some Blues singers that don't eat chitlins because I like them, but I know some that don't.

"” And I thought that it was just putting me down, you know.

And I wondered why.

Why do people?...

Even my own people, black people, do it to me, because that was a black person.

But I've had it from both white and black to do this to me.

And I've wondered why, you know?

Why is it that I get it and they don't give it to other people in other types, you know, in various fields?

It'’s been said that I've carried the Blues about as far as most of the Blues singers have in, shall we say, in the last decade.

So maybe I get more of it than they do.

But I've said many times, being a Blues singer is like being black twice, because not only do I have to try every day to audition to people to say, "“Hey, I'm a Blues singer.

Please listen, and let me play for you.

"” And I can never feel, I've never been able to feel-- and this is not modesty-- I've never been able to feel as a seasoned artist or like an established artist, I guess is a good word, like many of my friends in various types of music.

Mine has always been you're never any better than your last night's work, or your last record that's out, because as a Blues singer, it is hard for yours truly to get a record played by even black stations today.

It's very hard.

I've been told quite often by a lot of the program directors, "“I'm sorry, B., but we can't play that kind of Blues on the station.

"” I would like to feel myself, like a lot of the artists that I know, can come out, maybe make an album, or go to any place that people perform and be paid for it as other people.

And don't misunderstand me.

I'm being praised by many.

I'’m being accepted by many, but I feel somewhat that there's a shadow of me in most cases.

- Despite that shadow, B.B.

is much loved by the crowds and highly respected by his fellow Blues artists.

[music] [crowd cheers] - Basically, started a few years back when we did our first two MPs together.

Live the first time and together for the first time, and the second one, together again.

And it got a lot of doors opened for me right behind then, and I appreciate being a part of B.B.

King'’s organization, or whatever, part of the Blues to be exact.

He is the greatest, and I'’ve watched him from day one because I got about, I guess about 30 years myself.

Incidentally, like B, was giving me opportunities way back when he wasn't even as hot as he is now.

But he's just a wonderful person.

He deserves that particular thing.

I just found out they named a street after him just this week or whatever.

And I was so thrilled to hear that because he's been given the old 61 Highway!

It'’s getting more attention and he is one of the people that made it possible.

Albert, King, myself, and Little Milton, of these type people.

But B is the one that really opened the doors to getting the mixed audience and to getting a chance to sing to a mixed audience instead of just The Chitlin Circuit, and playing to my own people.

- What'’s The Chitlin Circuit?

- Well, it'’s when I played for years just to my own people, you know.

And just a very, very few white people would be in the building or whatever.

But now, practically what we play now is a mixed audience, even overseas and what have you, you know.

[playing Blues music] [singing] [audience cheers] [continues singing] - I guess...

I like being around friends, close friends.

I enjoy just plain conversation.

I like sports, and most sports I like, and I also like to be competitive.

I like to play games with people.

I like to read.

I like to do things that people don't feel like, other words, I learned to fly, for instance.

And I think to that, I think to myself when I talk to some of my friends that flying was a challenge and things of this sort.

Other words, when I said the games of trying to better my condition with friends, I enjoy being competitive along those lines.

And I don't know, I'm just a simple guy.

It's not that much.

I like to go only to places that I want to go to.

I'm a real homely guy.

I'm a pretty shy guy.

I, um, I like the ladies.

I like to look at ladies.

I would like to be married again before I die, but I'd like it to be one that would work.

I've been married twice and it didn't work.

I don't know how deep this is, but this could go back to even to my childhood, because many times I wish that I could have had both of my parents together.

And I know I have children and we haven't been together.

Been together more since they've been adults than they were when they were growing up.

And I don't know, maybe some of that is still in the back of my mind, that I still would like to have that home, that my family, or children, or anybody could come, and that would be to.

Maybe that's it.

I don't know.

But I-- maybe it was a way of life, the way I was raised up, being around others that was and had happy families.

I'm not really a chauvinistic guy to the point of where I don't want my lady to be competitive to me.

I would, any lady of my choice, I don't think would have any problems with me competing with me in whatever field she might want to, with the exception of one thing.

Now I grew up in the Delta in Mississippi believing that I'm the head of my house.

I enjoy opening the doors, whether it's car doors.

or the house, or whatever, to let my lady in.

I enjoy doing the many little things that I was taught that ladies want in life for you to do.

And I was taught that we males are the stronger as far as physically stronger than the female, and we should be able to do the things.

The days when is too bad for her to work, I should go.

These are the things that I'm talking about.

Not that I should make more money than she do.

But the one thing I think what I'm trying to say is where I draw the line with my lady.

I don't want her to be where she can'’t come where I am.

My work is more confining.

And usually when I need to see her, I need to see her.

And I don't want anything to keep her away from me, short of the great Creator, or something.

Bring the children if you have to.

But come to me when I need to see you.

And that, I guess to some, maybe sound a little bit chauvinistic, but I need to see my lady.

And if I can't leave, then I want her to be able to come where I am.

[singing slow Blues music] - Charles Evans, long time friend of B.B.

's, enjoys touring with him each summer.

You seem to have a particular interest in the Blues.

Why is that?

- I guess because the Blues is me, and I'm the Blues.

Blues is part of all of us.

Blues is something where-- my definition Blues is more or less a feeling of sadness, joy, disappointment, hope, faith, rejection.

And we have been-- I've been a part of all that.

And therefore, the only music I'’ve ever known was that sad, or that foot-stompin'’, that soul searching kind of music, and that'’s my environment.

You never forget from whence you came.

B.B.

started out playing, what we call The Chitlin'’ Trail.

Little black joints, we used to call little nigga joints.

Hot holes with no air conditioning for maybe 24 or maybe 30 people there, or maybe 300 people there.

So we don't want -- and that's where I came from.

Came from the same with the no voting, or some voting laws.

Most of us didn't vote at all.

They came from the back streets in the woods to wash pots and buckets and chickens and the outdoors.

And we just feel, though, that whatever we are, it'’s been the Lord upstairs, and black folks, and some white people made us that and we just think we owe them that each year.

And each year we do.

We take a bit of our money, we'’ll go all over the state and go to the places we know make no money.

But the further we go back to our folk and be there with them.

You can see them.

I like to see them scream at him and squeeze him and cry and hang on to him.

Lets him know that people still care about us.

No black person has been given the kind of recognition.

You know, Elvis stole this from B.B.

The rest of the big shot whites stole it from B.B.

And they get the big money and B.B.

gets a little nothing.

I know that people who came after B.B.

make $30,000, $40,000 a night.

B.B.

makes $8,000, $9,000, $10,000, and folks tell me how much money you make.

It's unfortunate, but just being black has always somehow been a stigma, an obstacle for us.

He's not pushy, and he'’s not demanding.

And I'’ve heard him say a lot of times, "“Well, me, I live better than I ever lived, so long as I can keep on doing this and helping folks, I'm satisfied."

Well, that's what he feels.

I don't feel that way.

If I was that man, I'd be the old Colonel was with Elvis Presley.

They'’d pay or they wouldn't hear him.

He's worth it.

He's worth every dime that Elvis Presley ever made or Rick James ever made, or any of the rest of them.

Kenny Rogers and all those people.

I think B.B.

King, as far as I'm concerned, is just as great if not greater than they are.

He's been out there all these years and the main thing is he'’s never given up.

He's still saying this is our music.

Y'all please listen to me.

Come on up.

But the sad part of it is that our folk, black folk just will not accept him, support him like they should.

If he was a young, middle aged, or old white boy playing the kind of music he played, he'd be a multi trillionaire because white folk would support him.

Until we blacks learn to do the same thing for ours, we'’re never be like that.

We'’re gonna still be around here eating out of them paper plates, sitting in the backyard, and wishing we had something.

But we got to put in the effort, and B.B.

is the kind of guy who could lead us out there, musically.

He should be our Elvis Presley.

But for most black folks, he just does it.

That's old B.B.

King.

But he's the greatest guitarist, and the greatest singer, and the great humanitarian in the field of entertainment I've ever known.

- If you set a piano in the corner and Oscar Peterson play it, you'll know it's Oscar.

Fats Domino, play it, you know it's Fats.

Or if Count Basie played, you'll know it's Count Basie.

So I think what I'm trying to say it'’s the touch, I believe, of the individual.

- Thank you, Mr. B.B.

King.

You are the King of the Blues.

- Thank you.

Thank you very much.

- And with that, we conclude our Faces programing, not only for this evening, but also for the 1983, 1984 season.

For those of you who've joined us throughout the year, we thank you very much.

Remember, we invite your participation through letters.

If you have comments or suggestions, please write Faces, Post Office Drawer 1101.

Jackson, Mississippi 39205.

That's Faces Post Office Drawer 1101.

Jackson, Mississippi 39205.

Be sure to look for us again in the fall.

Until then, have a pleasant summer and good night.

[playing upbeat Blues music]