B.B. King’s ‘Lucille’ Guitar Going Up For Auction

Her name was “Lucille,” and in B.B. King’s hands she gave voice to the “King of the Blues.”

Julien’s Auctions announced Tuesday that King’s black Gibson ES-345 prototype guitar is among the items from his estate that will go up for bid on Sept. 21.

Julien’s says Gibson gave King the instrument for his 80th birthday. The headstock has “B.B. King 80” and a crown inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The guitar is estimated to be worth $80,000 to $100,000.

The guitar was not the first to bear the name. The story goes that King first used that moniker for a guitar he rescued from a fire while he was playing an Arkansas club in 1949. The blaze broke out as two men fought over a woman, and the musician narrowly escaped death after he went back into the club to save his guitar, the auction house said.

When King learned the woman’s name was Lucille, he named his guitar after her “to remind himself to never fight over a woman or run into a burning building,” the auction house said.

The National Medal of Arts that President George H.W. Bush presented to King in 1990 is also up for auction. So are his touring van, jewelry and clothing.

The 15-time Grammy winner was 89 when he died in 2015.

CREDITS: APnews.com

Linda Ronstadt Documentary Due in September

A feature documentary, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and produced by James Keach and Michele Farinola and CNN Films, will open in theaters this September. The announcement was made by Greenwich Entertainment and 1091, which have co-acquired the North American distribution rights to the film. The documentary was co-financed by PCH Films and CNN Films. CNN Films also produced the project and has acquired broadcast television rights for North America.

According to a press release, “With one of the most stunning voices to ever hit the airwaves, Linda Ronstadt burst onto the 1960s folk rock music scene and became the most successful female musician of the 1970s. She sold out stadiums around the world and was the highest paid female performer in rock and roll. Ronstadt’s singing range was second to none and she recorded hit records across rock, opera, jazz and Mexican folk, which channeled her Mexican ancestry.”

Epstein’s and Friedman’s feature documentary is filled with rare archival footage of Ronstadt’s performances and interviews with her friends and collaborators Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and JD Souther. Constructed from interviews over 50 years, Ronstadt narrates the film that documents her career from her early days in Tucson, Ariz., through her premature 2011 retirement due to Parkinson’s disease.

Directors Epstein and Friedman have been honored with two Academy Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards. Before becoming filmmaking partners, Epstein won the Academy Award for his documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk in 1985. Together with Friedman, their documentary Common Threads won the Academy Award® in 1990.

CREDITS: Best Classic Bands Staff

James Taylor: Warner Bros. Albums Box Set Arrives

Between 1970 and 1976, James Taylor released six albums on Warner Bros. Records. Rhino will release a new collection on July 19 that introduces newly remastered versions of all of those albums. The Warner Bros. Albums: 1970-1976 will be available as both 6-CD and 180-gram, 6-LP sets, as well as digitally. This collection brings several albums back into print on vinyl for the first time in many years.

Each album in the set has been remastered, a process overseen by Peter Asher, who signed Taylor to the Beatles’ Apple Records label in 1968, worked as his manager for 25 years and originally produced several of these albums.

In the collection’s liner notes Asher writes: “Revisiting these albums several decades later has been revelatory, nostalgic and exciting. I have heard bits and pieces frequently over the years, of course, but listening with concentration and in detail to each of the original tapes without interruption has been a thrilling luxury.”

The Warner Bros. Albums: 1970-1976 includes Sweet Baby James (1970), Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971), One Man Dog (1972), Walking Man (1974), Gorilla (1975) and In the Pocket (1976).

The collection is filled with some of Taylor’s best known songs, including “Sweet Baby James,” “Fire and Rain,” “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” “Walking Man,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” “Mexico,” “Shower the People” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got A Friend,” the latter which was Taylor’s first #1 hit and earned him his first Grammy Award (Best Male Pop Vocal) in 1971.

The collection also offers up some deep cuts like his acoustic lullaby “You Can Close Your Eyes” from Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon; the 10-minute song cycle that closes One Dog Man; “Rock ’n’ Roll Music Is Now” from Walking Man, which features backing vocals by Paul and Linda McCartney; and “Don’t Be Sad ’Cause Your Sun Is Down” from In the Pocket, a song Taylor wrote and recorded with Stevie Wonder.

CREDITS: Best Classic Bands Staff