Bawdy BB The Back Door Santa

Surely the most recognizable blues musician alive in the world today has to be B.B. King. The man from Itta Bena, Mississippi has said that as a young man he would sing gospel songs on the street corner in Indianola and the passersby would applaud or shake his hand and tell him how wonderful it was to hear such songs. But they didn't drop any coins into his hat.

When he went across the street to sing blues songs, that's when he made his money. Playing the blues paid better than gospel. And it sure paid better than sharecropping.

The blues are what took Riley King out of Indianola to Memphis. And the blues are what made B.B. King an international star. Along with his obvious talent as a blues singer and guitarist is B.B.'s image as one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. Regal, just like his name, but folksy at the same time.

But don't be fooled. B.B. knows how to get down and dirty with the blues. Even at Christmastime.

Take for example, "Back Door Santa," a song written in 1968 by Clarence Carter, which obviously is molded after Vicksburg native Willie Dixon's classic "Back Door Man" from a decade earlier.

Back Door Santa Lyrics:

They call me back door Santa,
I make my runs about the break of day,
They call me back door Santa,
I make my runs about the break of day.
I make all the ladies happy,
while the men are out to play.
Well I ain't like old Saint Nick,
he don't come but once a year
Well I ain't like old Saint Nick,
he don't come but once a year.
But I'll come runnin' with my presents,
every time you call me dear.

B.B. King recorded "Back Door Santa" in 2001 for an album called "Christmas Celebration of Hope." All the money went to the charity "City of Hope," a world-renowned biomedical research and treatment center for people with HIV/AIDS and cancer.

Sure, he could have recorded a nice gospel album for the charity. But you know what? The blues pay better.

To enjoy B.B. King's "Back Door Santa", click here.

B.B. King Drawing Fans South

Word has spread about the new B.B. King museum in Indianola. And the word is good. It's been open for less than three months and blues fans from all over are feeling a pull to the delta to pay homage to the man and the delta blues art form.

Tom Uhlenbrock of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a recent visitor. But he wanted to see more than artifacts and photographs in a museum honoring the past.

Here's an excerpt:

Rave reviews about the B.B. King Museum, which opened in Indianola in September, inspired me to head out on a road trip through Mississippi, which is busy setting up highway markers for a Blues Trail. But I didn't want to make a dead-man's tour of markers, museums and grave sites. I wanted live legends, "real-deal" Delta bluesmen.

Uhlenbrock also mentions the new documentary "M for Mississippi" and interviews one of the bluesmen featured, T-Model Ford:

"I was born in Forest, Miss., picked cotton, plowed mules, worked in a sawmill," he said. "Can't read, can't write, never been to school a day in my life. Taught myself how to play the guitar. When I was 18, guy tried to kill me. I killed him and went on the chain gang in Tennessee. It didn't make a bad man out of me, made me a good man. I been quiet ever since."

Although his doctor told him to cut back on the Jack, Ford still tours and just got back "from this place with a great big blue lake." He couldn't remember the name, but Stella, who is 50ish, yelled from the porch, "Barbados."

Read the full article here.

Click here to hear B.B. King's 3 O'Clock Blues

BB's Museum

Ron Brown at Mississippi Public Broadcasting shares the story of the new BB King Museum. For more of the story read Billy Watkins' interview of BB in the Jackson Clarion Ledger or this report from Rolling Stone.

RIP Little Arthur Duncan

Sad news from the Chicago Tribune:

Little Arthur Duncan left Mississippi as a teenager for Chicago, where he befriended blues giant Little Walter and learned to play the harmonica. Mr. Duncan became an accomplished harp player and gutbucket blues singer who performed across the city and in Europe and ran two clubs on the West Side for many years. Mr. Duncan, 74, died Wednesday, Aug. 20, in Kindred Hospital in Northlake of complications from brain surgery, said Rick Kreher, a guitarist who often played with Mr. Duncan.

Born in Indianola, Miss., the hometown of B.B. King, Mr. Duncan came to Chicago when he was 16 and did construction work while playing in bars and clubs around Chicago.

He went into business about 1980, running two West Side clubs—the Artesian Lounge on Lake Street and Backscratcher's Social Club on Madison Street. The club, like his backing band, The Backscratchers, took its name from one of his signature numbers, Slim Harpo's "Baby Scratch My Back."

He played regularly at Rosa's Lounge and Buddy Guy's Legends and in Europe. He threw parties, which were renowned for their lavish spreads of Southern food he prepared, for the city's blues communities at his South Side home.

Visitation will be held at 4 p.m. Aug. 29 at A.A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home, 318 E. 71st St. A one-hour visitation will precede 11 a.m. services Aug. 30 at Second Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, 7922 S. Hoyne Ave.

BB King Buys Club Ebony

B.B. King has purchased the juke joint Club Ebony in his hometown of Indianola from Mary Shepard who has owned it the past three decades. Shepard is ready to retire and her last day at the club is April 6. A Mississippi Delta Blues Trail Marker outside Club Ebony says several musical icons have played there since 1945 besides King including Count Basie, Ray Charles, James Brown, and Ike Turner.

RIP - David Lee Durham

Delta Democrat Times: "The Delta blues community has lost another of its favorite sons. David Lee Durham, 64, will be laid to rest Saturday during a service at Gentry High School in Indianola. The self-taught guitarist died on Jan. 24 at South Sunflower County Hospital. Durham, who played a trademark white guitar with patriotic stars and stripes, was longtime leader of the Ladies Choice Band. In 2004, the group won the Delta's Regional Blues Challenge. That same year, the Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola named Durham 'Blues Musician of the Year.' While we Deltans love the blues, and we love to share the history behind it, we're reminded of the harsh reality of the life of a local blues musician when someone like Durham passes - without sufficient means to cover funeral and burial costs. One postive of this is that fellow blues musicians, including Mickey Rogers of Greenville, joined forces Wednesday night for a benefit at Indianola's Club Ebony, with proceeds to cover those costs."

BB King

BB King is preparing a new album, recording this month to be released in early 2008. T-Bone Burnett is producing the Geffen studio album. This article includes a quote from King about doing a partner album: "People keep asking when I'm going to do something else with Eric Clapton or U2. But I can still do things by myself. This time, I've decided I don't want to do anything with partners for a while."

The AP reports on his homecoming this year to Indianola and his summer plans including a 16-city blues festival tour. This piece is also a good update on BB - festivals, museums, honors, etc.

And from the Muskegon Chronicle, "In the king's own words, the thrill's not gone. Nowhere near. A lesser musician -- say, a mere commoner -- might expect it at least to have dissipated a little, after six solid decades of playing the blues. But B.B. King -- whose long reign as king of the blues makes any of the world's other monarchs a mere flash in the pan by comparison -- isn't about to step down from his throne." (read the rest of it here)

BB King in Indianola

Scott Barretta writes in today's Clarion Ledger: This Saturday B.B. King makes his annual visit back home to Indianola, where he'll headline the B.B. King Homecoming Festival at Fletcher Park and appear in the evening at the historic Club Ebony. A late change in King's schedule moved the festival from last Friday to this Saturday. Also performing at the festival, which begins at 5 p.m., are Willie King, Bill "Howlin' Madd" Perry, local favorite David Lee Durham and Jackson soul-blues diva Dorothy Moore.

Thursday News Roundup

Yesterday, the Mississippi Blues Commission dedicated a Blues Trail marker for the Summers Hotel and Subway Lounge in Jackson. The Subway was featured in the Last of the Mississippi Jukes and was a longtime blues staple of Jackson.
WLBT has video and the Clarion Ledger also has a report of the event.

Delta Southern Bank has pledged $200,000 toward the BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola (full story).

Elvis Fest kicks off tonight in Tupelo (full story).

Tupelo Daily Journal: Country music star Marty Stuart will bring a host of artists to Oxford this weekend to celebrate American music. The stars will gather to perform for Oxford Sessions, a series of concerts to be videotaped live for a planned series of TV specials celebrating American Music. The two-night event will kick off Thursday at the Gertrude C. Ford Center on the University of Mississippi campus. The Williams Brothers, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Hubert Sumlin will take the stage Thursday, while the Blind Boys of Alabama and Charlie Mussellwhite will perform Friday. Marty Stuart will host and perform both nights. Tickets for each show is $5. For more information about the shows, call (662) 915-2787 (More on this at the University of Mississippi newsdesk.)

The Delta Democrat Times has this great feature on Greenville native Frank Vick, bluesman and longtime drummer for Little Milton and later Howlin' Wolf. The eighth annual Highway 61 Blues Festival, to be held Saturday in Leland, is dedicated to Vick and to the late James “Son” Thomas (Full Story Here).