(GREENWOOD, MISS) – A Mississippi Blues Trail Marker commemorating the birthplace of blues legend B.B. King is missing.
The marker, located near Berclair in Leflore County, was just west of Itta Bena, Mississippi in the delta. Blues Trail markers generally cost upwards of $8,000 each. According to the Associated Press, a Blues Trail manager, Wanda Clark, is reportedly in the process of replacing the marker. She added that one or two signs per year need to be replaced for various reasons.
Founded in 2006, The Mississippi Blues Trail is a statewide self-guided “tour” of the state’s great many contributions to the blues and popular music. Well over 120 markers stretch statewide (even a small handful located both nationally and internationally) commemorating everything from Charley Patton’s home to Rosedale, Mississippi as sung about in Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues” to the birthplace of Elvis Presley.
“The long and remarkable life of B.B. King began near this site,” said the marker before it’s disappearance this week, “where he was born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925. His parents, Albert and Nora Ella King, were sharecroppers who lived in a simple home southeast of here along Bear Creek. After his parents separated when he was four, King lived in Kilmichael and Lexington before moving as a teen to Indianola, which he referred to as his hometown.”
