King had perfect audience for final Vegas show

B.B. King spent his life spreading the gospel of the blues, but for his last Las Vegas show he was able to preach to the converted.

The 89-year-old guitar legend died Thursday, more than seven months after his final Las Vegas stand as a headline at the Big Blues Bender festival at the Riviera.

He was to be honored Friday with an audio-video salute at the Fremont Street Experience. The special tribute will follow the usual Viva Vision shows at 8, 9, 10 and 11 p.m and midnight.

The Sept. 26 festival show was one of King’s last few; his final performance was believed to be at Chicago’s House of Blues on Oct. 3.

“This was a special audience,” Bender producer A.J. Gross said of the Las Vegas event that drew blues fans from 13 countries. “These were all serious blues lovers. B.B. got this really appreciative audience to play for his last time. This was an audience who understood he wasn’t in his prime. It was a pay-your-respects kind of time.”

And King felt the love too. “It took 10 minutes to get him off the stage. He did not want to leave the stage,” Gross says with a laugh. “There was a bit of discussion over whether he got up on his own or whether his handlers picked him up.”

After the show, King spent about 20 minutes talking to young teen guitar prodigy Brandon Niederauer, Gross recalls.

Gross said he had to double King’s usual fee to secure him as a festival headliner, but did in part because of “a feeling that we were giving this man his final due.”

Even though a block of 21 rooms were booked for his band and crew, King walked into the Riviera on his own to check in, after apparently driving himself to the hotel, Gross added.

Read more from Mike Weatherford at bestoflasvegas.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.