One king to honor another

STOCKHOLM —  Critics and fans alike consider him blues royalty, but B.B. King said Friday that he gets nervous meeting a real monarch.

“I never met a king before,” the bluesman from Itta Bena, Miss., said in the Swedish capital, where he’ll receive the 2004 Polar Music Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf next week.

“I did meet the queen of England once, and I shiver every time I think about it now,” he added. “So I’m wondering what will happen now that I have a chance to meet the royal family. I’m grateful, but I’m still scared.”

The 78-year-old blues King and Hungarian-born composer Gyorgy Ligeti were selected for the annual prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music earlier this year. Both will receive the prize Monday, but the 80-year-old Ligeti had to cancel his trip because of illness, his assistant said.

Ligeti, who lived in Sweden during the 1960s, was “very unhappy that he’s not able to be here,” Louise Duchesneua said. “He was looking forward so much to be able to show off his Swedish.”

The $130,887 award, founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of the Swedish pop group ABBA, is typically split between pop artists and classical musicians. Previous winners include Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Isaac Stern, Bruce Springsteen, Pierre Boulez and Quincy Jones.

The academy praised King for his “significant contributions to the blues” and a “total dedication to his music, a rich recording history and tireless touring lasting more than half a century [that has] made him one of the most prominent figures within the blues.”

Ligeti was cited for “stretching the boundaries of the musically conceivable from mind-expanding sounds to new astounding processes in a thoroughly personal style that embodies both inquisitiveness and imagination.”