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Showing posts from May, 2015

Top 10 ways the 'King of the Blues' changed music

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    Blues legend BB King, left, performs with Bo Diddley at the second anniversary celebration of BB King's Blues Club and Grill in New York's Times Square in 2002. BB King was the last of the great bluesmen. King died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas on Thursday. He had outlived all of his peers; was admired by generations of blues, rhythm 'n' blues and rock musicians; and stood as a reminder of a sad, soulful, sexual music forged on the plantations and in the juke joints of the Deep South and electrified in the industrial cities of the north. BB King, left, and an accompanist perform during the opening of the 1980 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage  Although rock 'n' roll finds its roots in the blues it also managed to marginalise many great blues performers. The smart ones – like Chuck Berry and Fats Domino – simply modified their styles, embraced rock'n'roll and left the blues behind. As Muddy

Christian Siriano Makes Black Women Look Like Goddesses

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A merican fashion designer and member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA),  Christian Siriano is easily one of the most successful designers to come from hit show Project Runway.  Siriano won the show's fourth season at the tender age of 22, and he's rocketed to the upper echelon's of American fashion. Celebs clamor to wear his gowns, and he's done right by some favorites. Uzo Aduba at the 2014 Emmys Solange at Art Basel Yaya Dacosta at American Ballet Theater's 75th Diamond Jubilee Gala Teyonah Parris at the 2014 Emmys Danielle Brooks at the 2015 SAG Awards

BB King heirs to challenge bluesman's will and actions of manager

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Lawyer for daughters and other heirs alleges business manager misappropriated millions, had been untruthful and was unqualified to be executor hare on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Shares 132 Comments 9 A lawyer representing a group of BB King’s heirs said on Saturday they would challenge the blues legend’s will and the actions of his longtime business manager-turned-executor of his affairs. Attorney Larissa Drohobyczer issued a statement early on Saturday, just hours before a private memorial service in Las Vegas. King was 89 when he died at his home in Las Vegas earlier this month. Fans lined up for a public viewing of his body on Friday. His body will be flown back to Memphis,  Tennessee , on Wednesday. A tribute is scheduled that day at WC Handy Park on Beale Street. A public viewing is scheduled for Friday at the museum that bears his name in Indianola, with a funeral on Saturday at nearby

A standing ovation for B.B. King; Thousands attend The Blues Kings Memorial

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A standing ovation for B.B. King and more cheers than tears marked a family-and-friends memorial of the late blues great's life and legacy Saturday in Las Vegas. "B.B. was energetic, Amen?" Pastor Pamela Myrtis Mason said to open the service that drew more than 350 to the Palm Mortuary chapel. "Amen," they said. King's closed casket lay framed by an array of floral arrangements, two of his guitars named Lucille and a tapestry showing him in eyes-clenched reverie picking a note from a section of the guitar frets dubbed by followers the "B.B. King Box." "Why don't you put your hands together for the King of the Blues, B.B. King!" the pastor said. As the applause ended, granddaughter Landra Williams dubbed him "the backbone of our family King." More than 10 of King's 35 grandchildren and eight of the blues icon's 11 surviving adult children spoke during a two-hour service that

B.B. King's funeral arrangements; Vegas|Memphis|Mississippi

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The King of the Blues will get one last time on Beale Street. The open-casket event from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday at Palm South Jones Mortuary begins a week-long series of memorials.  A procession next Wednesday will mark the King of the Blues' return to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, before a final road trip to Indianola, Mississippi, and burial May 30. The marquee across the street from B.B. King's restaurant on Beale Street  LAS VEGAS  m ortuary manager Matt Phillips says viewers can file past King's casket, but there'll be a strict no-photos rule.  King's daughter, Shirley King, is hosting a Friday night musical tribute.  She booked the Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas to open to the public at 8 p.m. for what she says will be live music and remembrances.   After a memorial service Saturday in Las Vegas, the remains of B.B. King will arrive in Memphis about noon on May 27, where a procession at Beale Street's Handy Park will take place. On May

BB King "The King of the Blues" 1925-2015

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BB King 1925-2015 - A performer of considerable stamina King was above all a showman, and his willingness in later life to temper his music to suit the tastes of a white audience attracted criticism from blues' purists; but such carping overlooked the fact that King was also the articulate guardian of much of the blues' heritage, and that he had raised the form almost single-handedly from its backwater status into the musical mainstream. His own playing, a majestic fusion of blues and jazz styles that brought him the nickname "King of the Blues", also had a profound effect on the development of modern rock music. Great performer:BB King The son of a sharecropper, he was born Riley King on a plantation near Indianola, Mississippi, on September 16, 1925. His parents separated when he was four, and his mother married twice more before dying when Riley was nine, leaving