A Night with B.B. King & Friends

03.07.2006

Live at Auditorium Stravinski

With B.B. King, Claude Nobs, Barbara Hendricks, Joe Sample, George Duke, Leela James, John McLaughlin, David Sanborn

"It was back in 1958, I was 22 at the time and at the Hotel Management School in Lausanne when I heard that La Placette was opening a record department. I ran there, and the saleswoman told me that she'd receive a stock of unknown-brand singles and LPs. She kindly suggested that I look through them, and I came across the first recordings of B.B. King. I bought the lot, and since then he's never left me."

It's a story of admiration that goes beyond words, the notes of music that transcend the pain of the blues so poignantly expressed by B.B. King, born Riley Ben King on September 16th 1925 in Itta Bena (Mississipi). Claude Nobs says discreetly and emotionally: "I'm hooked". "He's so affable, but also extremely generous even though life dealt him one of the worst blows imaginable; the loss of his son. Yet he always goes up to people with a big smile on his face and sparkling eyes, and the desire to create happiness, nothing but happiness".

Although he had to wait a long while before he could get the man "who revealed the living blues" to perform in Montreux, Claude Nobs has more then caught up for lost time: "Since his first concert at the Casino on July 8th 1979, he's been here nineteen times. his presence covers a quarter of a centura. Each time, I'm amazed at his kindness, and the way he wants to share things with the public. he insists on giving workshops. And this year, he wants to organise a boat trip on the Lake of Geneva, play on water with his pals. The boat has been called the "Mississipi Blues Boat". Van Morrison's already announced he'd buy a ticket..." Yet again, B.B. King will ask his friend Claude Nobs to join him on stage his harmonica. And yet again, the latter will try to hide his immense emotion: "Each time I pick the wrong harmonica, I get stuck and I feel really ashamed (he smiles). Playing beside him... I feel almost awkward". (FFJM © 2006)