JANUARY 21, 1982 – Blues legend B.B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015) donated his entire record collection of over 20,000 discs to the University of Mississippi University’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture. This donation helped establish the creation of the Blues Archive. The collection included 7,000 blues discs King aired as a disc jockey at Memphis’ WDIA in the Fifties.
The University made B. B. King an Honorary Professor of Southern Studies in 2004. The blues master already held honorary doctorates from Tougaloo College, Yale University, the Berklee College of Music, Rhodes College, and Mississippi Valley State University.
