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| December 18, 2006 |
| Jazz Legend B. B. King To Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom |
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 B.B. King, a 14-time Grammy winner, will receive the USA's highest civilian medal, the “Presidential Medal of Freedom,” on Fri, Dec 15, it was announced by The White House. Among the other recipients are author David McCullough, human rights activist Natan Sharansky and major league baseball’s first African American coach, John “Buck” O’Neil.
King’s 2007 tour will be his “60th Anniversary Tour” and kicks off in January in So, Califlifornia. In 1947, blues legend B.B. King (www.bbking.com) launched his professional career, leaving the Mississippi Delta and heading for Memphis, where he enjoyed some early successes, before going to become one of the world’s most beloved musicians. Last April, at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York’s Times Square, the music legend celebrated a historic milestone, his 10,000th concert in New York, one of 150 stops on a 2007 US tour that will include stops in Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson and San Antonio.
King, 81, just spent nearly a week at his club namesakes in Nashville and Memphis filming his entire act for an historic, B.B. King in concert DVD, due out in 2007.
“It’s been a long journey, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, bringing the blues to so many enthusiastic audiences around the world.”
King celebrated his 80th birthday a year ago by recording, with a few of his musical compatriots, his new studio album of duets which won him a Grammy last February.
His "Live At The Regal" album was also inducted this year into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
"In my lifetime, blues music has certainly grown in its universal appeal and I'm forever grateful for that.” King has announced that a museum is to be built in his home state of Mississippi and the fully-funded, $10 million B.B. King Museum will open in 2008 near his hometown. Bulfinch Press recently published a major, briskly selling book on the musician, titled “B.B. King’s Treasures,” a combination biography and collector’s edition.
Among King’s many classics are “The Thrill Is Gone,” “Payin’ The Cost To Be The Boss, “Everyday I Have The Blues,” “You Don’t Know Me” and “Why I Sing The Blues.”
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