The Life of Riley

In his lifetime, Riley B King - better known as BB King - more than earned his nickname "The King of the Blues". Born in Mississippi in 1925, he was raised by his grandmother and worked on a cotton plantation while singing with the local church choir and learning his first guitar chords. He began recording in 1949 and influenced a generation of rock royalty, including Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and Bono, who all testify to his greatness here alongside Bruce Willis and Barack Obama. But this engrossing, Morgan Freeman-narrated profile puts King front and centre, and director Jon Brewer not only captures his musical genius in 250 hours of footage amassed over two years, but also his tenacity in enduring decades of vicious and often violent racial prejudice.