The Arrival of B.B. King: The Authorized Biography

by Charles Sawyer

Portrays America's foremost blues singer, from his Mississippi sharecropper boyhood to the sixties' worldwide recognition of "Blues Boy" King, with many illustrations documenting the history of the blues

Genres: Music, Biography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Michael Duane Robbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had the good fortune to catch a performance by the King in Seattle at the annual Bumbershoot fest in the fall of 1991 or 92; it was before I met my future wife anyhow. It was sweltering and packed in that tiny auditorium, but BB put on a hell of a show. The book Sawyer presents is more analytical and scholarly, not as personal as some biographies. But this one had the blessing of the subject himself, and he allowed Sawyer a significant amount of exposure, a privilege which no doubt had to be earned. Before we ever hear his life story, we are treated to a testament of life on the road for BB and his band. Where some men are undermined by their doubts and insecurities. BB turned them into his musical allies. The photos sprinkled throughout the book were also courtesy of the author. Give it a spin.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

B.B. King's life story is nothing short of spellbinding. From his dirt-poor roots in Mississippi, to his hard scrabble life as an itinerant musician, B.B. has been just about everywhere and done just about everything. He has transcended the obstacles life has placed in front of him to become, well, B.B. King. He is one of the people I admire most in the world. For many years, he was a close friend of my sister, with whom he shared the medical woes of being diabetic. A few years ago, B.B. cut back his touring schedule, because he was gettin' old, and not able to get around as well as he used to. He now only tours 275 days a year! He has arrived, in more ways than one.

[Bob Irving · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice inside look at BB, including social history of Mississippi in the Jim Crow era.

[Brad McKenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Sawyer tends to be as tight with time as a broken rubber band. He starts with a great rundown of the road warriors BB and his band were for more than twenty years. He and his band often played upwards of 340 one-night engagements in a year. It was exhausting just reading. Then he flashes back to B.B's days as just Riley King. That wasn't out of the ordinary, a lot of biographies set the stage like that, but within the following chapters he tends to tell the endings before the beginnings.

For example, he has B.B. getting divorced before he is even married. Then he has his manager taking him back on three years after being fired before he's even hired. It was a little confusing. Another confusing aspect was the repeating of entire paragraphs from previous chapters. He would the a anecdote and then tell the same one later on. One final critique: in the afterward, Mr. Sawyer declares Jim Crow dead. Since he was writing in 1980, I can forgive him not knowing about The New Jim Crow we've got going on today, but I feel he should have known better. He just got through retelling the troubles Jim Crow presented to the BB, people have longer memories than he credits them with.

I think I'm so critical of the story because I expected more. Granted, the book is almost 40 years old, but still he spent more time detailing BB's time on the Chitlin' Circuit than he did on BB's years in the spotlight. Even though I was lost during some of the more intricate explanations of BB's musical skills, I appreciated the variety of areas of life that were covered. In addition to the Jim Crow south and the musical skills, it delved into BB's morality and his obsession with technology. As an example of the latter: he's got 20,000 records that he was working on transferring to tape.

I walked away from this book with a newfound respect for BB. He was not only a musical genius, he was also genuinely good man. He treated all and sundry with the respect he thought that deserved. He deftly deflected people that tried to take advantage of him and he always willing to lend a fiscal hand to his bandmates, even to his own detriment.

This was a good read, Mr. Sawyer was a friend of BB and so had a knowledge of him later biographers may not have. I was glad I read it but perhaps I'll look for a more updated biography with which to compare this one.