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B.B. King & Eric Clapton Honored At Blues Awards
05/26/2001 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Gary Graff
(5/26/01, 7 a.m. ET) -- B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Chris Layton were among the honorees at the W.C. Handy Blues Awards, which were given out Thursday night (May 24) in Memphis, Tennessee. King took home two trophies--blues entertainer of the year (for the third year in a row), and contemporary blues album. That album, Riding With The King, also netted an award for Clapton.
Chris Layton, who rose to fame as the drummer in Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, received his second consecutive instrumentalist of the year--drums honor. Other big winners on the night included female blues artist Shemekia Copeland, who won contemporary female artist of the year, blues album of the year for Wicked, and song of the year for "It's 2 A.M."; and Etta James, who took home the soul female artist of the year trophy before being inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame.
Last year, B.B. King told LAUNCH how he and Clapton came together for Riding With The King. "Well, I was watching Larry King, and I heard Eric say he'd like to do a CD with me, and I'd been wanting to hear that for years. He had did a, a track with me on the CD we called Deuces Wild. He did 'Rock Me Baby' on that with me, so that's been some time. And I wanted to--from that time on--to do a CD with him. He's such a good guy, he's always doing things for people, so being a friend, I didn't want to push it," King said. "But I was glad when I heard him say he'd like to do it."
The 2001 W.C. Handy Blues Awards winners include:
ACOUSTIC ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Delta Crossroads, Robert Lockwood Jr.
ACOUSTIC ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Keb' Mo'
BAND OF THE YEAR
Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band
BEST NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Shake Hands With Shorty, North Mississippi Allstars
BLUES ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Wicked, Shemekia Copeland
COMEBACK ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Neckbones & Caviar, Mel Brown
CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Riding With The King, B.B. King & Eric Clapton
CONTEMPORARY FEMALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Shemekia Copeland
CONTEMPORARY MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Eddy Clearwater
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
B.B. King
HISTORICAL BLUES ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Last Call, Otis Spann
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—BASS
Willie Kent
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—DRUMS
Chris Layton
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR--GUITAR
Duke Robillard
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—HARMONICA
Charlie Musselwhite
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—HORNS
Roomful of Blues
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—KEYBOARDS
Pinetop Perkins
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR—OTHER
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, fiddle
SONG OF THE YEAR
"It's 2 A.M.," Shemekia Copeland (from Wicked)
SOUL BLUES ALBUM OF THE YEAR
My Heart Is In Memphis, Irma Thomas
SOUL BLUES FEMALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Etta James
SOUL BLUES MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Little Milton
TRADITIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Lettin' Go, Son Seals
TRADITIONAL FEMALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Koko Taylor
TRADITIONAL MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
James Cotton
-- Gary Graff, Detroit and Bruce Simon, New York
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