B.B. King's Blues Club

History

B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street was the first club to carry the blues guitarist’s name. Beale Street Blues Company says Thomas Peters started the company in Memphis and opened the club in 1991 after the city asked him to help revive a rundown Beale Street. B.B. King told a May 3, 1991 press conference that he wanted the room to become a home for the blues, and he opened that night with “Somebody Changed the Locks on My Door.” The supper-club restaurant books house bands playing blues, soul, and rock and roll, and the company says visiting artists have sat in over the years, among them the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, and Lenny Kravitz.