The Rolling Stone Returns to His Delta Home

Amid a light rainy day, hundreds of people filled a church in the Mississippi Delta for the funeral Saturday of B.B. King, who rose from sharecropper in the area's flat cotton fields to worldwide fame as a blues singer and guitarist who influenced generations of entertainers.
More than 200 people who couldn't get into the sanctuary watched a live broadcast of the funeral in the church's fellowship hall, many waving hand-held fans with a black-and-white photo of a smiling King hugging his black electric guitar, Lucille.
King's public viewing Friday was almost like a state funeral, with Mississippi Highway Patrol officers in dress uniform standing at each end of the casket. Two of his black electric guitars stood among sprays of flowers.
King was 89 when he died May 14 in Las Vegas.