Category: Hear

Blues music icon B.B. King will begin hosting his own weekly music show for XM Radio beginning in September 2008, it was announced today by the company. The program will feature a broad range of blues and gospel music hand-selected by King, along with stories about the artists and other personal anecdotes from the bluesman’s epic career. In anticipation of King’s hosting debut, today XM relaunched its dedicated blues channel “Bluesville” as “BB King’s Bluesville” (XM 74).

“I love the blues and am looking forward to sharing my passion, stories and my favorite music with all the folks who listen to XM, one of the few places where the vibrant sounds of the blues still thrives,” said B.B. King.

For more than 60 years, Riley B. King — better known as B.B. King — has defined the blues for a worldwide audience. Since he started recording in the 1940s, he has released over 50 albums, many of them classics, won 14 Grammy Awards, been inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of the Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) Chairman’s Award, among many other awards. In a special ceremony at the Library of Congress, Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington presented B.B. with a “Living Legend” medal in honor of his achievements as a musician and ambassador for the blues. After 10,000 concerts, B.B. King continues to bring his music to audiences around the globe spending the better part of each year on the road with his beloved guitar, “Lucille.”

On August 26, Geffen Records will release B.B.’s newest T Bone Burnett-produced album, “One Kind Favor,” and, on September 13, King — one of few living musicians in the world to be so honored — will preside at the opening of the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in his hometown of Indianola, MS.

B.B. King was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bene, Mississippi, near Indianola. In his youth, he played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, TN, to pursue his music career. Memphis was where every important musician of the South gravitated, and which supported a large musical community where every style of African American music could be found. B.B. stayed with his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues performers of his time, who schooled B.B. further in the art of the blues.

The mobile music market will be experiencing another tipping point thanks to The Grid Records, a Phoenix-Ariz.-based music production, artist development and record distribution company, with the launch of their ‘Mobi Music’ (www.mobimusicco.com/download) program. The innovative ‘Mobi Music’ service will spark a triple-threat revolution in the billion dollar mobile music industry—synonymously benefiting the three driving forces behind the mushrooming trend: the perspective consumer, the recording artist and the wireless carriers.

‘Mobi Music’, the brainchild of The Grid Records founder and serial entrepreneur, Mark Schmitz, was conceptualized to give a universal audience a simple access point to purchase full-length music tracks and complete albums instantaneously via wireless phone then have the purchase immediately available to save in the user’s desired computer music program—all without the hassle of integrating, downloading and upgrading software, monthly subscription fees or unsecure virtual payment worries.

The effortless, yet resourceful model of ‘Mobi Music’ came to life with the integration of evolving mobile application technologies. This first generation of the ‘Mobi Music’ program allows the purchase of digital music to be made using the consumer’s mobile phone bill; no registration or credit cards are required—all rules, regulations, components and certifications with respective parties, including the Mobile Marketing Association have been approved and ready for use.

“Finding the appropriate technological component that fit the ‘Mobi Music’ vision presented unexpected challenges and unwanted obstacles in our initial stages,” explains Schmitz. “Although the mobile music industry, as a whole, is saturated, we found the capabilities and functionality of existing programs were very limited. The evident need in the marketplace for a program that incorporated the same ideals as the ‘Mobi Music’ concept, stimulated us to produce a high-performing product to give to the marketplace.”

The opportunities within ‘Mobi Music’ put the consumer back in control of their purchases and proficiently integrate the need for instant gratification on a specific music selection with a painless text-to-buy process. A single track or a full album can be purchased, accessed online and saved in a desired music program in less than a minute. ‘Mobi Music’ users will have their favorite artists tracks or record – literally at their fingertips – and will have the ability to make their purchase at a live concert, watching the music video, listening to the song on the radio or a multitude of other media channels.

In addition to the benefits ‘Mobi Music’ gives to the consumer, the concept creates a direct revenue stream for record sales, as well as the participating wireless carriers. ‘Mobi Music’ presents an ideal value-added distribution model for record labels and album sales executives with the built-in opportunities to transform marketing and advertising efforts into direct distribution access points.

“The disruptive technology presents an evergreen enhancement to all promotional materials for artist album sales,” says Dave Franke, Managing Partner of The Grid Records. “Instead of communicating the date when the album will be in stores, the message becomes ‘text the code word to the assigned number to purchase full-length single, multiple tracks or the entire album’. The return on your investment increases tenfold—the possibilities are endless.”