Media advisory: Scholars can discuss legacy of B.B. King

LAWRENCE – Scholars at the University of Kansas can talk about the life and legacy of blues great B.B. King, who died Thursday in Las Vegas at age 89.

Roberta Freund Schwartz, associate professor of musicology, is an expert on King’s influence on British musicians. She is the author of “How Britain Got the Blues: the Transmission and Reception of American Blues Styles to the British Isles,” which won the 2008 Association of Recorded Sound Collections award for best historical writing on the blues.

B.B. King was a global ambassador of the blues, Schwartz said. In 1969, King was shocked when 3,000 fans greeted him at a London airport. He had no idea he was so famous, she said.

“B.B. King will stand with the same kind of stature over blues as Louis Armstrong does over jazz,” Schwartz said.

King influenced rockers such as Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Bono. In particular, King’s major legacy was pioneering the single-string vibrato style.

“He really was an elder statesman who had a profound effect on young blues artists,” she said.  

Daniel Atkinson, assistant director at the Kansas African Studies Center, has extensively researched Afro-American music and teaches courses on the subject. Atkinson, who met King on several occasions, also has produced and recorded music.

Atkinson can speak to the history of Afro-American music and the legacy of B.B. King, which is a complex one.

“He was one of the first blues artist to introduce the blues in a palatable way for white consumption,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson’s latest publication, “Feets Don’t Fail Me Now: Navigating an Unpaved, Rocky Road To, Through and From the Last Slave Plantation,” focuses on recordings he took of inmate music and oral histories at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, a former slave plantation.  

To schedule an interview with Schwartz or Atkinson, contact Christine Metz Howard at 785-864-8852 or cmetzhoward@ku.edu.