T he trucker is squinting hard through the downpour of a sudden tempest, steering his load of appliances along the slick Connecticut four-lane. He's nattering on the CB radio as the mammoth motor coach pulls alongside. The lights are on in the bus's private lounge, and despite the rain, the windows have been pushed open. Looking out at the trucker is a seventyish black man popping a Diet Coke and a smile. Bwwaaaaaaaaa . The trucker leans on his horn in a delighted blast of recognition. There's an American vision sweeping past, and the driver is hollering the news into his mouthpiece: It's B.B. King ! B.B. grins at the honking salute. Even when he was in his early twenties, plying the rural juke joints and eye-blink towns outside Memphis, he says, he loved to hear his imminent arrival announced on local radio, to have excitable women trill the news as he sauntered past with his guitar: B.B. King 's in town! At seventy-three, he is King of the Blues Worldwide, according to the custom tour jacket tossed on the seat; a national treasure by virtue of his Presidential Medal of the Arts – and a real gone daddy if… Read full this story
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