BB King to Play One Special Auckland Show

His reign as King of the Blues has been as long as that of any monarch on earth, and today Chugg Entertainment is thrilled to announce that Mississippi blues impresario, BB King, will be playing one very special show in New Zealand at Auckland’s Civic Theatre on Sunday 24th April.

Riley B. King – better known as BB King – has been making records and touring longer than most of his fans have been alive. For more than sixty years, he has defined the blues for a worldwide audience and is one of the last surviving links to the blues that gave birth to rock ‘n roll as we know it.  This man has earned every ounce of veneration he gets.

From humble beginnings as a hungry young blues man who at age 12 bought his first guitar for $15, BB King has been recording since the 1940s and has released over 75 albums, many of them classics, and won 15 Grammy® Awards. He was ranked #3 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time,” and has been inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of the Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award and the NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) Chairman’s Award, among many other awards.  In a special ceremony at the Library of Congress, Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington presented B.B. with a “Living Legend” medal in honour of his achievements as a musician and ambassador for the blues.

In 2008, BB King released the Grammy Award winning One Kind Favor, a new album featuring covers of old blues songs from his early influences. The set revisits the music that influenced B.B. in the 1950s, the beginning of King’s extraordinary professional journey that, literally, changed the texture of modern blues playing.       

Having performed more than 10,000 concerts, it is clear that time has no apparent effect on BB, other than to make him more popular, more cherished and more relevant than ever.

In even greater news for music fans, BB King will be welcoming Grammy nominatd Ruthie Foster as a special guest on the evening.  An artist that has been called a “blues powerhouse” by Oprah Winfrey, the soulful songstress will spin the mind and the mood of New Zealand music fans. From her beginnings in the Brazos Valley of Central Texas, the ever expressive Ruthie Foster has Southern blues in her groove, rock in her rhythm, plus a blend of gospel redemption, country poetry and jazz elegance in her singing.  But not, according to Ruthie, until her latest album, The Truth, have all the pieces fitted into a picture this powerful.  

Her gigs have taken her from choir lofts to folk bistros and onto stages in America, Europe and Australia. As one US rock critic enthused:  "Music this moving doesn't come around often these days..."  Well, here it comes again, with Ruthie Foster ready to unveil to her followers The Truth, the eagerly awaited follow-up to her 2007 critically acclaimed The Phenomenal.   Ruthie Foster tackles life’s big issues, harmonised against her core message – that through all of the ups and downs of living, you must stay true to yourself.

Run, don’t walk, to see this splendid evening of music at its most sublime.  Ruthie Foster warming up the stage for BB King, and watch this international superstar prove that he can still make his beloved guitar, the wondrous Lucille, moan like nobody’s business, that he can still growl in that way that all blues singers have been trying to imitate for decades, and that he can still win over a crowd.