WASHINGTON: Electric blues legend BB King was awarded the US president’s top medal for his larger-than-life role in inspiring generations of rock and blues musicians. President George W Bush patted King, 81, on the back after hooking the Presidential Medal of Freedom around the neck of the singer and guitarist, whose best-known songs include The Thrill is Gone.

“He’s still touring and he’s still recording and he’s still singing and he’s still playing the blues better than anybody else,” Bush said at the White House ceremony on December 15. “In other wo-rds, the thrill is not gone.”

Bush paid tribute to King’s guitar, Lucille, and his humble origins on a plantation in the racially segregated US southern state of Mississippi.

Born Riley B King, he walked to school and picked cotton for 35 cents a day. In 1947, barely in his 20s, King hitchhiked to Memphis “with his guitar and $2.5 in his pocket,” said Bush. There, his national career took off on Beale Street, where he got the name Beale Street Blues Boy — later shortened to BB.

King was among 10 people who received the medal. Others included Soviet-era dissident and ex-Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky and US columnist William Safire.