B.B King at Morongo, CA:

It's good to be the King, especially when you've throughly earned your crown.

In case you haven't heard of B.B King, you should know he basically invented the blues guitar as we know it, and to this day is considered one of the masters of the instrument. What, I guess, is less well known is that the man is also a damned good singer. Age has given his voice a texture that is pure, undiluted blues.

Interestingly enough, one thing he doesn't do is play guitar and sing at the same time. He sings, he plays, but he switches off, instead of doing them both at once. And his guitar sounds like a voice: clear and liquid with notes that shine cooly in the air.

Like Springsteen, B.B is a natural frontman. Out front is where he belongs, and where he's most comfortable: sitting on his chair, cracking wise with long, winding stories and playing off the audience in a way that gives you a glimpse of the sort of all-inclusive presence he must have been in the dance halls in his prime. I am convinced that bandleaders like him must have been the forerunners of the stand-up comedians as we now know them. A one-stop-shop for a night's entertainment. The only thing missing was the dancing that his quick, sax-heavy band was clearly built from the ground up for.

Speaking of that band, I have seen some good jazz acts in my time, and these guys were worth price of admition all on their own. I think the youngest member of that band must have been at least in his 60s, and they were so in synch they were virtually finishing eachother's sentences: musically speaking. B.B reminded me of no one so much as Bruce Springsteen when he had his band-members pantomiming the correct responses to his jokes (turning away in wonderfully self-conscious disbelief when he declares he has "never seen an ugly woman") and reading his mind as regards to the timing of the songs, the lengthly intervals filled by his rambling, often tawdy stories of blue pills and seduction how-tos. It's the kind of connection born of so many road-miles it's crazy. I could imagine the E-Street Band getting dropped into any venue and making it work for them, but their actual venues remain pretty uniform: B.B and his band really can play everything from Jazz festivals to indian casinos to rock clubs and will make it work for them somehow. They're that good.

B.B King is 83 years old. He sits for the entire performance. He has his guitar (the famous Lucille) and he has a microphone, and he has a band that can read his mind. He ended the show throwing whole handfuls of guitar pics and necklaces into the crowd, but we'd already gotten our biggest treats.

Hail to the King of the Blues.