On the weekend of January 11th 2002, the Foxwoods Resort Casino will become home to the B.B. King Dance & Nite Club. The club will feature adjoining venues where there will be dancing in the larger of the two and a smaller blues, jazz, and comedy club.

The Dance Club will feature an art-deco motif, a theater-style entrance marquee, a 700 square foot stage, two bars, a disc jockey booth, and a dance floor. It will accommodate 429 patrons. The Nite Club portion of the complex will accommodate 245 patrons. It’s design is that of a converted warehouse with a fiber-optic illuminated glass block along with a granite and copper bar. B.B. King memorabilia, along with a custom portrait and an original autographed “Lucille” guitar will also greet fans. The main man himself, B.B. King, will open the club with performances on January 11th and 12th. In addition to opening the club, B.B. will play several times a year, jamming with new young talent.

B.B. King is as busy as ever these days. At the age of 76 he is without question the most prolific blues artist of our times. In just the last couple of years he has released an array of Grammy winning and Grammy nominated records including “Blues On The Bayou,” “Let The Good Times Roll,” “Makin’ Love Is Good For You,” “Riding With The King,” “Here & There – The Uncollected B.B. King,” and most recently his first holiday recording called “A Christmas Celebration Of Hope.”

I was able to catch up with B.B. the day before Thanksgiving. We talked about his music, his clubs, Muhammad Ali, and other assorted topics.

BH – What made you record a Christmas CD at this time?

BB – “I’ve wanted to for many years but it just seemed like the time wasn’t right. I’m with a big company so I have to get permission to do certain things, to get them released. I can cut anything I want but to have a release date, they have so many artists you know. So the time was right this time.”

BH – Do you feel it was more poignant releasing a Christmas CD after the events of 9/11?

BB – “There’s probably some truth in that but we cut this back in July or August, long before we had the problem.”

BH – I love the ‘Blues On The Bayou’ album. There’s a song on there called ‘I’ll Survive’ that I feel is becoming your signature song, even more so than ‘The Thrill Is Gone.’ Do you agree with that?

BB - “I don’t think so but it does bring back good memories to me thinking about all the years that I’m still around. It does tell a lot of my story but I don’t think the people would agree with you.”

BH – You recently did the Louis Jordan tribute ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ and so many of those songs have been part of your play list for years.

BB – “Yeah I’ve been doing ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ for many, many years. I don’t really know how long but I thought it was a good theme and I’ve been doing it for a long, long time, long before we decided to do the tribute to Louis Jordan.”

BH – If I may quote your autobiography, you wrote that Bill Haley and his Comets were a fifties cover version of Louis Jordan’s great jump bands of the forties. We’ve all heard the saying the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll but you actually take that a step further and draw a direct connection to Louis Jordan.

BB – “I think he was, this if funny to say it, but he was one of the first to be a rapper. He was doing hip hop when we never even heard the word. He did a lot of humorous things like ‘have you got the gumption to have the assumption that I’m lit,’ like he’s drunk you know. That is one of the tunes but he’s got so many other tunes that do things that the kids are doing today but in a nicer way if I can use that word. What I mean by that, he didn’t use four letter words you know. But he did rapping, he did hip hop, he did it all if you research his repertoire. The things he did back then are things that people are still doing to this day. You’ll find a lot of connection.”

BH – You recently collaborated with Eric Clapton on the ‘Riding With The King’ disc. I know you just did a duet with Tony Bennett. And on ‘Dueces Wild’ you had at least a dozen guest musicians. You seem to really enjoy working with other well known musicians.

BB – “Well even God said that Tony Bennett was his favorite singer. God being Frank Sinatra. And in England if you walk around you’ll see signs on the walls in many places that says Eric Clapton is God. So if God says that they are good why shouldn’t I? But I think to really answer your question, people like Tony Bennett, they like Eric Clapton, they like many of the people on ‘Dueces Wild’ where everybody had something to offer. People don’t get to be where they are without being talented and having something people like. So yes I love recording with them and I’m still able to learn so much from them.”

BH – You know you wrote your autobiography in 1996, but so much has happened in your life since then it almost seems like it’s not finished, like it needs another chapter.

BB – “Well I’m sure somebody will finish it. It’s hard to wait until you’re on your dying bed and then finish your chapter you know. So you write it at a time, like you do your will, at a time that you’re thinking clearly. And at a time when you have things on your mind that you think that you should talk about and you do it then. So maybe I’m a little early but it’s sort of like the old saying better late than never except in my case it’s better early than never.”

BH – Changing the subject if you don’t mind, Muhammad Ali is in the news today with the movie about him being released. I understand that you were part of a group of musicians that went to Zaire for the Ali – Foreman fight. How did you feel about that whole experience?

BB – “Well it was a great feeling. I had been to Africa before but I had never been to Zaire. Both Muhammad Ali and George Foreman are good friends of mine. I knew them both and I was just hoping for a good fight. I wasn’t pulling for either. I’ll tell you a little story about it. Leaving from New York’s Kennedy Airport with all the people we had, James Brown was going to do some extra dates over there so he wanted to carry all his equipment. So carrying all his equipment made the plane be just about overloaded. So everybody was scared. It was loaded up so much they had to put something under the tail in order to keep the tail from going down and the front from going up if you know what I mean. But for most of us that know a little something about planes, we didn’t like that so much. On the plane were the Spinners, Sister Sledge, Etta James, and quite a few other people including myself. So we kind of complained a bit. So James told the promoter that ‘if I can’t take my equipment then I’m not going,’ so that hurt a lot there. But finally we compromised and took off and the plane looked like it was, well like when you try to pick something up but it’s too heavy. I could feel the leaves on the trees as we crossed over them. So finally we get to Madrid around midnight or so and once the plane set down everybody said ‘well if you’re going to carry anything this time then we’re not going.’ So they left some of his equipment there and everybody left happy. We got in to Zaire about 3:30 in the morning and people were dancing in the streets, I mean thousands of people dancing in the streets. So it was a very good feeling, I stayed around a few days and enjoyed it very much.”

BH – But you never did get to see the fight?

BB – “No something happened, I think George Foreman got hurt sparring and it got postponed a month or so and I didn’t see the fight after all.”

BH – B.B. tell me how the whole idea of having your own clubs started.

BB – “You know I’m from Mississippi and I didn’t go to Chicago like a lot of blues singers did. I went to Memphis. Memphis was good to me. There used to be a lot of clubs on Beale Street in Memphis. And after Beale Street went down and was later renovated we saw that it was a chance that we could have a club. The city opened its arms to us to have a club on Beale Street. But Memphis was dry. Shelby County was dry. You couldn’t buy liquor at the bar. So they made special legislation to change Beale Street and a few of the clubs so they could have liquor, have bars. So we thought it was a good idea. My manager and I talked about it and we talked to some other people that had money, and it started from there. We thought then that we would probably open up ten of them eventually. Then if I didn’t have no place to play I could play the ten clubs.”

BH – You must enjoy playing at your own venues.

BB – “Well it’s a good feeling to go to a club and see your own name on it that they don’t move on the marquee when you leave. It’s something I never dreamed would happen. But you know these clubs, I don’t own them. They’re carrying my name but I don’t own them. The only say so that I reserve the right is that people be treated as I would like them to be. That’s the one thing. Also I don’t like discrimination. I like the food to be the best possible. So these are the things that I would talk about. But who they bring in or who they don’t bring in, I don’t deal with that. We have managers that do that. But if something happens that I don’t like then I reserve the right to speak on it.”

BH – B.B. do you think it might be possible that you’ve taken the stage in front of an audience more times than any musician in American history?

BB – “No I don’t think so. I may have did more work for a year that most musicians because I do a lot of touring. We’re never off tour. We may stop and take a break for two or three weeks or so and then you go back again. But you know when I think about it, it is possible what you said is true because, well, I’ll give you a reason. For years and years and years would have worked a whole week for what a lot of entertainers make for a day or a night now. So in order to keep my band together I had to keep working so I could make money to pay them. And you know you had to have some place to stay and you don’t want to stay just anywhere because people break in your rooms and what have you. So we always stayed in the best hotels. So anyways, I think what I’m trying to say to you is that I worked a lot of times when I would not if I could have made a good salary. Then when I started to make a good salary, then I realized I had the best band I ever had and in order to keep a good band together you got to keep them working. We used to average about 250 shows a year and in 1956 I did 342 one nighters. Of course I never did that again or before. But we do it at the time but I was young and I didn’t think much about it. When you’re young you move about, you don’t have bad knees and all those things that hurt you when you get to be over 50.”

BH – B.B. I can’t begin to tell you how excited everybody is around here about this club opening at Foxwoods. I know a lot of people who work in the entertainment department at Foxwoods and the general consensus is that of all the hundreds of musicians that have come through their doors, you and Willie Nelson are by far the most popular with the employees.

BB – “I’m happy to hear that because Willie is my friend and I thing personally that he’s one of the nicest people in the world.”

Like Bob Marley is to reggae and Miles Davis is to jazz, B.B. King’s name is synonymous with blues. The fact that he will now be a regular part of our music scene is a rare privilege for all of use who have enjoyed his music for so many years. Long live the King!