B.B. King Sydney and Melbourne shows

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 making his long awaited return to Australia in Easter 2011.

Already announced for Byron Bay’s Bluesfest, BB King will also be appearing at Sydney’s State Theatre on Tuesday 12th April and Hisense Arena in Melbourne on Saturday 16th 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. Run, don’t walk, to see 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.
 
TICKETS FOR SYDNEY & MELBOURNE SHOWS ON SALE
WEDNESDAY 8TH DECEMBER, 9AM

Tuesday 12th April
State Theatre, Sydney
www.ticketmaster.com.au 136 100

    
Saturday 16th April
Hisense Arena (reduced mode), Melbourne
www.ticketek.com.au 132 849