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 By Jim Morris

The Legendary BB King played the Adler Theatre in Davenport on the Birth date of another guitar legend Jimi Hendrix: Monday Nov. 27. Opening for BB King was a renowned Blues guitar artist Bernard Allison and his accompaniment of bass, drums and organ/keyboard.

Allison’s set was a high-powered Blues vibe with enough energy to get the largely middle-aged audience tapping their feet and bobbing their heads. Bernard manically ran his hands across the guitar in numerous and respectively artistic guitar solos all while entertaining the audience with wide-mouthed grins and taunting head nods.

Allison even managed to humanize his guitar using a Wa-Wa pedal and high-pitched note slides to make sounds bearing a resemblance to English words. Allison’s guitar sang out such words as Hello, Thank You, and You’re Welcome. He even formed what may have been a conversation with Charlie Brown’s parents to amaze the audience at his guitar capabilities.

After Allison’s group banged out their head bobbing set, BB King’s pink-suited musicians took the stage, but with no BB. The group consisted of a four-man horn section, a bass player, a drummer, a pianist, and a guitarist. The group played through a couple instrumentals featuring solos from all of its members before introducing the show’s headliner.

Admittedly King’s roaring has tamed down some; he remains seated at front center throughout the whole show and his guitar playing is limited to little effort rants between lyrics and at the end of songs. But King still remains a true entertainer. During long jams he amuses the audience with hilarious one-liners and stories of cheating wives.

Even at his age, King’s Blues-style raspy voice still shouts out lines of betrayal and heartache. He acts as the conductor of his troop instructing them when to play and if he likes what he hears. To prove he’s still got it, King consecutively downs two beers provided at his side, ignoring the bottle of water, and then joins the band again.