Blue Monday
April 7, 2008
Though he’s put his hometown a long way behind him, B.B. King revisits Indianola, Miss., once a year for an annual homecoming. Now he owns a juke joint, the Club Ebony, where he played during his career climb, to add to his empire of eponymous music spots. The growth of blues tourism in the Delta region has spurred the appearance of so many upscale places calling themselves juke joints — Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero being the most famous — that Clarksdale now has its own Juke Joint Festival.
The video posted above is from Ralph Gleason’s jazz show, from the days when PBS was still called NET. Down here is a duet between King and T-Bone Walker from roughly the same period.
