If you've had it with orange, the Riverside paints All Hallow's Eve blue on Friday as legendary blues guitarist and singer B.B. King plays the Downtown theater.
King -- along with his trademark Gibson guitar, named Lucille -- has decades of material to draw from when he performs, but you can be sure that this time 'round he'll focus on his latest disc. "One Kind Favor," produced by T-Bone Burnett, was released in July and on it, King returns to his roots, playing the songs that got him started.
On tunes like "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," "How Many More Years" and "Get These Blues Off Me" -- the titles seem as appropriate as ever for King-- with Dr. John on piano, Jim Keltner on drums, Nathan East on double bass, and a host of others.
In September, King was on hand for the opening of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in his hometown of Indianola, Miss. Now THAT'S a sign of a living legend.
Don't miss him this week when he turns Brew City into Blue City. Tickets are $45 and $55.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
