http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oica5jG7FpUB.B. King's Estate War: 15 Kids, 15 Moms and a "Totally Haywire" FightThe Hollywood Reporter - By Scott Johnson
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/bb-kings-estate-war-15-897351The King of the Blues never contested claims from women during his decades of touring who came forward saying he was the father of their babies — even though a low sperm count made it highly unlikely. Now, a year after his death, as memories of a loving, generous parent slip away, his descendants go to war in court.
When bluesman B.B. King died last year, he bequeathed to the world a body of work spanning six decades that brought joy and comfort to millions. The crooner of "The Thrill Is Gone" and "Sweet Sixteen" transformed American music, inspiring such rockers as Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson and Buddy Guy. King was 89 when he succumbed to congestive heart failure in his Las Vegas home and died peacefully in his sleep on May 14, 2015.
The year since then has been decidedly less peaceful. While neither of King's two marriages resulted in children, he managed to leave behind a vast family: 15 kids from 15 women. If that family history weren't complex enough, King's authorized biographer Charles Sawyer wrote in his book, The Arrival of BB King, that doctors found the musician's sperm count too low to conceive children.
In 2015, Sawyer told The Guardian that he had given King the option to remove the reference and that King declined. Either way, King claimed 15 kids as his own — never disputing his paternity — and of the 11 who survive, many now are fighting with King's appointed trustee over his estate, a fortune that family members tell THR could be worth between $30 million and $40 million when royalties, asset sales and rights are taken into account. Many of the kids point to a 2007 will and trust that they claim grant them generous allowances.
But King's longtime business manager, LaVerne Toney, who is now the legal trustee of King's estate, asserts that she merely is following a 2014 trust, which names the children but doesn't provide for them with specific monetary gifts. According to the trustee's own legal filings in Nevada, King's estate also is far smaller than the children allege: $5 million and change spread across a few Wells Fargo bank accounts. But the kids have assembled teams of lawyers to fight the estate's guardians. The litigation could continue for years.
While the value of King's estate is the subject of great contention, observers say it hardly is a case like Michael Jackson's estate, which has gone up in value roughly $1 billion since the enigmatic singer's death. In King's case, he wrote few of his hits, sold records for decades to a segregated America and made deals at a time in which black artists were hardly paid handsomely. According to analysis conducted for this story by Billboard, King's publishing and recording assets — including his catalog — are valued at roughly $7 million to $8 million, based on Nielsen Music data and consultation with a financial executive who buys publishing and master recording catalogs.
By all accounts, King loved each of his kids dearly and, while alive, generously offered financial help. He bankrolled college tuitions, visited children in prison and set up trust funds. But the equilibrium he maintained in his family, balancing a frantic touring schedule — he often played upward of 200 gigs a year — with the needs of his clan, collapsed when he died. THR has learned that since his death, three more people have surfaced, claiming King was their father, too. "My dad told us, 'Even when I'm gone, I'm gonna take care of you.' But we haven't received a dime since he died," says Riley B. King, B.B.'s son, 67. "We got a lawyer, and we are trying to fight and get what belongs to us."
The legal fight began within weeks of King's death. Then a few children went public with a stunning allegation: Toney and King's personal assistant, Myron Johnson, had fatally poisoned King. The accusers had no hard evidence, but investigators ordered an autopsy report. Police found nothing to support the allegations, and the suit was dismissed. Johnson then sued the accusing family members (including his own sister, Karen Williams) for defamation; the outcome still is pending.
These accusations split the family, one side fueling toxic innuendo about King's fate, the other wincing at the resulting tabloid headlines. Since then, several children have pursued lawsuits targeting King's music estate, which remains in dispute. "I saw him work all his life to take care of the family, and that's what it should have stayed like," says Shirley King, his eldest daughter. "It got really bad before he left this earth, and then it just went totally haywire."
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As King got older and his health deteriorated, he began to moderate his generosity, according to his grandson Christopher, a former Marine who now works as a motivational speaker and entrepreneur. As a kid, he remembers watching King count out $180,000 in cash on a hotel bed, some of which he then doled out to family members who needed it. Christopher says that King wasn't immune to the pain that bickering within the family caused him. "It upset him sometimes," he says. "He would say: 'It's family, son, period. We gotta take care of the family.' "
A diabetic, King began to suffer from hypertension and arthritis. In 2007, he signed over control of his medical care to Toney, who'd worked by his side for 40 years. Four years later, he gave Toney control over his business affairs and power of attorney. To Christopher, King began to worry more about his musical estate's future. "There've been times when he told me, 'Those that have eaten while I live will not eat when I'm gone,' " says Christopher. "He was cutting things off little by little as he got older; he knew he wanted his estate to be flourishing after he was gone."
Exactly how King wanted his estate divided now is the subject of ongoing lawsuits.
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All of which may be a sign that siblings and family members think Toney will have to cede ground. Bryson says that Toney, as the "personal representative" of King's estate, is dutifully carrying out the orders of his last and final will. Some family members say that King had not one will but two. And of the two recognized trusts, it remains unclear which one will hold sway in a court of law. Estate jurisprudence generally holds that the latest document supersedes earlier versions. But the children say the 2014 trust is flawed because it was finalized when King was nearly blind and suffering from Alzheimer's-related cognitive impairment and memory loss. They want the earlier documents to be reviewed and, hopefully, honored.
The legal system may now be giving them a chance. Christopher King claims that earlier this year a judge agreed to have the 2007 trust reviewed by a court. "LaVerne got everything," complains Riley King. "She stole everything." Bryson insists these claims are bogus. "The children and grandchildren are angry because Mr. King chose not to leave them a bunch of money," Bryson tells THR. "He gave them a lot of money over the years and wanted whatever he had left [to] go to [having] his great-, great-grandchildren educated." In any event, adds Bryson, King's years of hard work resulted in far less of a fortune than the kids hope: "It's not anywhere close to what some of the relatives are asserting."
Even if the earlier documents are reviewed, some King children may still be unhappy. Only some of his descendants are named in the 2007 trust, according to King's grandson Christopher, who says he has viewed the 2007 documents. "I think it's very fair," he says, without specifying exactly who or how many of the children are entitled to how much. "I want the issue to go away," adds Christopher. "I want him to be able to really rest in peace and for all of this to be over so we can move on with other things."
Looking ahead, the possibility of more claimants emerging can't be ruled out. Some of his kids say that the King family drama is a cautionary tale. "Maybe if there wasn't so many kids from so many different parents, it would have been different," says Shirley. "But all of a sudden my dad was just a bank." Three people have gotten in touch with Shirley in the past few months claiming a familial relation: a 72-year-old man who told Shirley that B.B King had sworn him to silence years ago, a claim she calls preposterous; a much younger woman from Florida; and then a woman from Detroit who showed up unexpectedly at a memorial service last year.
The last woman apparently had been trying to contact King for some time, even going so far as to send him some legal paperwork to prove her claim. But she didn't get far. King had the last word. "He said to send the paperwork back," recalls Shirley, "He wasn't taking no more kids on."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1lyErEtGdMRiley B. "B.B." King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015) was an American blues singer, electric guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists.
King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname "The King of the Blues", and one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" along with Albert King and Freddie King. King was known for performing tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing at more than 200 concerts per year on average into his 70s. In 1956, he reportedly appeared at 342 shows.
King died at the age of 89 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 14, 2015, from congestive heart failure and diabetic complications.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOnzDKvn7YIEarly Life
Riley B. King was born on September 16, 1925, on a cotton plantation called Berclair, near the town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers Albert and Nora Ella King. He considered the nearby city of Indianola, Mississippi to be his home. When Riley was four years old, his mother left his father for another man, so the boy was raised by his maternal grandmother, Elnora Farr, in Kilmichael, Mississippi.
While young, King sang in the gospel choir at Elkhorn Baptist Church in Kilmichael. King was attracted to the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ because of its music. The local minister led worship with a Sears Roebuck Silvertone guitar. The minister taught King his first three chords. It seems that at the age of 12 he purchased his first guitar for $15.00, although another source indicates he was given his first guitar by Bukka White, his mother's first cousin (King's grandmother and White's mother were sisters).
In November 1941 "King Biscuit Time" first aired, broadcasting on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. It was a radio show featuring the Mississippi Delta blues. King listened to it while on break at a plantation. A self-taught guitarist, he then wanted to become a radio musician.
In 1943, King left Kilmichael to work as a tractor driver and play guitar with the Famous St. John's Quartet of Inverness, Mississippi, performing at area churches and on WGRM in Greenwood, Mississippi.
In 1946, King followed Bukka White to Memphis, Tennessee. White took him in for the next ten months. However, King returned to Mississippi shortly afterward, where he decided to prepare himself better for the next visit, and returned to West Memphis, Arkansas, two years later in 1948. He performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM in West Memphis, where he began to develop an audience. King's appearances led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis and later to a ten-minute spot on the Memphis radio station WDIA. The radio spot became so popular that it was expanded and became the Sepia Swing Club.
Initially he worked at WDIA as a singer and disc jockey, gaining the nickname "Beale Street Blues Boy", which was later shortened to "Blues Boy" and finally to B.B. It was there that he first met T-Bone Walker. King said, "Once I'd heard him for the first time, I knew I'd have to have [an electric guitar] myself. 'Had' to have one, short of stealing!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.B._King
