B.B. KING was the gracious, perma-gigging ambassador of the blues, but his seeming serenity glossed a rollercoaster career, struggles with racism and gambling, audiences lost and found. As a new tribute album reinforces his legacy, MAT SNOW goes to bat for arguably the most underrated legend of the form, starting with the gig that turned everything around...

WHEN PUTTING THE tracks together for B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100 — my band’s two-disc, 32-track tribute to B.B. King in celebration of what would have been his 100th birthday, on September 16, 2025 —

He turned down Hendrix, butted heads with Lemmy, was saved from a bad trip by Pete Townshend, present at a thousand pop-culture flashpoints… Ten Years After bassist Leo Lyons explains why he’s like “the rock’n’roll Forrest Gump”.

From Black Sabbath awakening to jam band to Hanoi Rocks to decades-straddling solo artist, via Finland, London, NYC and beyond, he’s been up, down and up again, through thrills, spills, triumph and tragedy. You could say he’s really lived the rock’n’roll life, but that would be an understatement.

Magic hexes, hotel robberies and cut-throat deals: band members and associates chronicle the heady days of 1972/73, when Led Zeppelin seized control of the industry and became the biggest rock band on the planet.

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .