by Misty A. Sweet

B.B. King’s Blues Band blew the roof off the Roanoke Performing Arts Center Tuesday night. And that was just the seven-piece band’s two-song intro before King took the stage.

At 82 years old B.B. King, in his three-piece suit and black patten leather shoes, is the consummate entertainer. He preceded each song with a story and told as many stories as he sang songs. Jokes about talking slow because he is from Mississippi, aging and likes to intermingle his Viagra, Levitra and Cialis prescriptions were intermixed with serious statements like still missing his father twenty years after his death.

King introduced “Blues Man” by saying he wanted us to know where he’d come from. He grew up on a farm on the Mississippi Delta. He talked of plowing fields with Big Ben and Big Red, the two mules, one of which apparently had gas. Of not seeing electric lights in a house until he was sixteen. Of watching women from the drugstore window in his hometown where the railroad tracks separated the two streets and the two races. These stories were not bitter just a bit of his history.

King seemed to enjoy the nearly two hours he spent on stage however he radiated most as he played his guitar Lucile while belting out fan favorites like “I Need You So,” “When Love Comes to Town,” “The Thrill is Gone” and “Rock Me Baby”. Whenever he could, King encouraged the audience in call and response. The slightly rowdy audience (one beer bottle rolled so loudly on the floor even King raised his eyebrows and made a crack) responded not only by singing, talking back (one woman shouted that she had been a fan since 1958) but also with repeated standing ovations.

If you missed B.B. King show Tuesday night it is worth a road-trip to hear the blues legend. He plays about 250 shows a year. See one soon. bbking.com/events