Blues Legend B.B. King''s Body Returning For Burial in Mississippi

Misisipi.- The body of blues legend B.B. King will return next week to the Mississippi Delta where his life and career began. His body will be flown on Wednesday to Memphis, Tennessee, the place where a young King was nicknamed the Beale Street Blues Boy.

Kingâ Ös body will be driven to Indianola, Mississippi, which King considered his hometown. The 15-time Grammy winner will be buried later that day in a private ceremony at the museum, which King helped develop.

"From a practical standpoint, we feel comfortable knowing his final resting place will receive perpetual care at the museum," the facilityâ Ös director, Dion Brown, said in a written statement Wednesday.

The famed guitarist and singer was married twice and had 15 natural and adopted children, 11 of whom are still living.

He was born Riley B. King on Sept. 16, 1925, to sharecropper parents in Berclair, Mississippi, near the tiny town of Itta Bena. His parents divorced when he was young. His mother died a few years later, and then his grandmother died, leaving him living alone in a cabin and sharecropping an acre of cotton when he was 14.

After living in several small communities in Mississippi, he moved to Indianola, where he first gained attention for his musical talents.

He moved to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was in his 20s, and thatâ Ös where a radio station manager dubbed him the Beale Street Blues Boy. That was shortened to B.B., and the nickname stuck.

King went on to international fame playing electric blues guitar that influenced generations of blues and rock musicians.