In this Aug. 22, 2012 photograph, the then 86-year-old B.B. King thrills a crowd of several hundred people at the annual B.B. King Homecoming, a free concert on the grounds of an old cotton gin where he worked as a teenager many years ago, in Indianola, Miss. Festival organizers said this year’s festival was to have been a tribute to the then living King, who died May 14, 2015. Now they are calling it a memorial celebration. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — B.B. King will be mourned in Las Vegas in a family-and-friends memorial ahead of the start of his final road tour home to the Mississippi Delta.
A day after more than 1,000 people turned out for a public viewing, a memorial will be held Saturday for the blues icon at a downtown funeral chapel.
King died May 14 at home in Las Vegas at age 89.
Some of his 11 surviving adult children are feuding with his longtime business agent, who’s now executor of his estate.
But King’s legacy remained the main focus on Friday.
His viewing drew generations of fans.
One was 83-year-old alto sax player Earl “Good Rockin” Brown. He remembers being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1990 at the same time as King.
