Watkins: Crossing the seas for B.B. King

INDIANOLA – Silvan Zingg had traveled more than 24 hours from Lugano, Switzerland, to attend the funeral Saturday of his hero, Mississippi bluesman B.B. King.

And now he was less than a mile from Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Indianola, running down B.B. King Road, trying to beat the rain that was falling harder with each ticking second.

He flagged down a church van. The driver rolled his window down an inch or so.

"You got room for one more?" Zingg asked with an accent as foreign to the Delta as chopsticks.

"Got one seat left," the driver said.

Zingg, 42, raced to the other side of the van, slid open the door and hopped into a seat on the second row.

"I had to be here. I loved this man," he told the 10 people in the van without prompting. "I play piano. I was able to play with him at the Montreux Jazz Festival (in Switzerland) in 2011. It was a dream come true.

"B.B. King changed music all over the world. He changed me. My father played seven instruments and was always playing vinyl records of so many great players from America when I was a child. B.B. King was the one that caught my ear the most. He was magical. No way I was not coming to pay my respects.

"I just hope, somehow, I can get into the church. I hear it will be very crowded."

I was in that van. I heard him say those things. I saw the emotion on his face.

It is easy to read the words "King was respected worldwide" and gloss over them.

Silvan Zingg makes them real.

Turn it around. How many people do you love and respect enough to travel 24-plus hours to Switzerland to attend their funeral?

Exactly.

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B.B. King, who died May 14 at his home in Las Vegas at the age of 89, would have needed his ever-present white handkerchief to wipe away the sweat Saturday on another steamy Delta day. The brief rain before the funeral only made it more sweltering.

But people — his people — were willing to stand in line in front of the church, hoping to get one of the 400 seats. The rest would watch a video feed in the fellowship hall.

A memorial was held in Las Vegas on May 23. Memphis staged a day-long tribute last Wednesday to celebrate his life and mourn his passing. And those were fine. He had friends there, too.

But the final ceremony, which would see him buried on the grounds of the B.B. King Museum, was in his home state, in the town where he first played music publicly, as a teenager. He would hurry and get his chores done every Saturday, and then dress in his finest clothes — such as they were — and play on a street corner. Gospel and blues. He loved them both.

"I knew him as a gospel singer first, when he had a group called The St. John Gospel Singers in the late 1940s and I hear them on the radio. I was just a child at the time," said Denise LaSalle, who was born in Leflore County, grew up in Belzoni and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011. "They would introduce each member on the radio, and he was still going by his real name, Riley King at that time.

"A few years later, I was in a jook joint and a song called 'Three O'Clock Blues' was playing on the jukebox. He was B.B. then, but I knew that voice. I knew that was Riley King."

She eventually shared billings with King. They became friends, but she could never shake the "awe" factor.

"He had that touch on the guitar that nobody else has ever had," Lasalle said. "It was that music that came out of his guitar — 'Lucille.' They made magic together. He would sing, and then he would make her talk. That was a tough combination for anybody to top."

Also battling the heat for a seat was Eldessa Johnson of Southfield, Michigan. She dated King for more than 40 years. She came with a friend who also knew him, Fran Harris of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"I have cried. I've listened to his music, I've prayed for strength because I need it," Johnson said. "The world knew him as a great musician. I knew him as a kind, gentle person who would do anything for anybody who needed it.

"He was a gentleman. He was very protective of me. The media would ask who I was when I was with him at different shows across the country, and he would say, 'Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?'

"He loved for me to cook for him. His favorite thing was a butter roll, but it's not what you think. It's a dessert, and he would want that with fried corn and corn bread."

Tears welled in her eyes.

"I can't believe I'll never make another meal for him," she said. "I loved him. I did."

I have no idea if she got a seat in the church.

I hope so.

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The funeral was a beautiful tribute to a beautiful man.

One of the most touching moments was when Myron Johnson, King's tour manager for the past 10 years, spoke of seeing King the day before he died.

"I had fed him, and I told him I figured I'd head home," Johnson said.

King grabbed his hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

"I'll miss our times sitting at the Golden Spoon yogurt store, enjoying our favorite flavors, telling stories and, yes, watching women go by," Johnson said.

If ever a man was born who loved the beauty of a female, it was Riley "B.B." King.

Near the end of the ceremony, I made my way from the fellowship hall and into the sanctuary. When I walked in, I was standing three feet to the side of the pulpit. Sitting on a metal folding chair next to me was Zingg, the music violently moving his body as if he had stuck his hand into a wall socket. I patted him on the shoulder. He gave me a hug. His face was all grin.

And on the final song, Zingg worked his way to the piano, content to play a duet at first. But the assigned pianist gave way to Zingg after a while.

That 24-hour trip from Switzerland was looking more and more like a good decision to him.

Zingg played with him when he was alive, and he played for Riley "B.B." King on the day Mississippi gave him way more than a proper burial. Sleep could wait just a little longer.

Contact Billy Watkins at (769) 257-3079 or bwatkins@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @BillyWatkins11 on Twitter.