B.B. King is one of the most celebrated musicians of all time.
Performing over 17,000 shows worldwide during his storied career, the Mississippi Delta native’s name still draws thousands of people each year to places like Indianola, the home of the B.B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center.
But there’s still a lot that the world does not know about the King of the Blues.
Author Daniel de Vise offers a brand new 500-plus page biography of King, King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King, which could prove to be the most definitive King biography of the last few decades.
The book is set to be released Oct. 5, and de Vise will be making his first Mississippi appearance on the book tour at the B.B. King Museum next Thursday, Oct. 7.
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De Vise joined The Enterprise-Tocsin publisher Bryan Davis this week to talk about the book, the tour some things he’s learned about B.B. King along the way.
Click the video above to watch the full interview.
De Visé is a writer and journalist. A graduate of Wesleyan and Northwestern universities, he worked at The Washington Post, the Miami Herald and three other newspapers in a 23-year career.
He shared a 2001 team Pulitzer Prize and garnered more than two dozen other national and regional journalism awards. His investigative reporting twice led to the release of wrongly convicted men from life terms in prison.
His first book, I Forgot To Remember (with Su Meck, Simon & Schuster, 2014), began as a front-page article de Visé wrote for The Washington Post in 2011. His second book, Andy & Don (Simon & Schuster, 2015), began as a journalistic exploration into the storied career of his late brother-in-law, Don Knotts. Andy & Don is now in its eleventh paperback printing.
His third book, The Comeback (Grove Atlantic, 2018), rekindled a childhood obsession with professional cycling and the sport's forgotten hero, Greg LeMond.
The Comeback inspired Congress to award LeMond its highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, in December 2020. His fourth book, King of the Blues, honors a lifelong passion for collecting, performing and writing about music.
Daniel is married to Sophie Yarborough, a senior editor at The Washington Post. They and their children live in Maryland.
