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Review by Clay Stafford
When he begins by dedicating this book to his 15 children (all from different mothers), B.B. King sets the stage for some unusual verbal riffs.
King is 70 years old and brutally honest. His approach is straightforward, not necessarily proud, but offered with nothing to hide. He explains a life lived the best he could, and with the best he had to work with at the time. The language is so direct, it's difficult not to feel that King is standing right next to the reader -- in the moment -- just like the music he plays.
Beginning with his days as a sharecropper's son, Blues All Around Me details the evolution of several things: B.B. King's life, the influences behind his over 74 albums, the transformation of rhythm and blues to rock and soul, and the roles of blacks and black music within both white and black societies. Oddly enough, "discrimination can come from places you'd never expect."
From "Three O'clock Blues" to "When Love Comes to Town," King shows when it comes to stroking his guitar Lucille, "The Thrill Is (Definitely Not) Gone." As he himself writes, "The blues is something you live." And B.B. King should know.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.