The president of the USA, Barack Obama, mourned the death of the musician BB King, who died in Las Vegas at the age of 89, noting that the country "has lost a legend" and that "tonight there will be a great blues session in heaven". "The blues has lost its king and the United States has lost a legend, "Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
According to Obama, "no one worked harder" than King, the son of a Mississippi sharecropper who immigrated to Memphis, Tennessee to pursue a career in music, and "no one did more to spread the truth about the blues." He also recalled the 2012 blues concert at the White House in which BBKing participated, as part of the musical evenings that the president and his wife, Michelle, have organized in recent years to honor styles such as jazz, Latin rhythms. or the "soul."
So relaxed was Obama at that concert that even though he put up some resistance when Buddy Guy encouraged him to sing, he finally took the microphone and sang a few lines from "Sweet Home Chicago," the song that closed the night. "I didn't expect to be convinced to sing a few lines from 'Sweet Home Chicago' with BB (King) at the end of the night, but that was the kind of effect his music had and still has," the president said in the statement.
King “may be gone, but that emotion will be with us forever. And tonight there will be a great blues session in heaven, "he concluded. The "king of blues" died this Thursday in Las Vegas (Nevada, USA) at the age of 89, according to his lawyer, after being hospitalized for dehydration in April. Always with his inseparable Gibson guitar nicknamed "Lucille", King won fifteen Grammy Awards throughout his career, more than any other blues musician.
Via | EFE