To hear him tell it, blues musician Albert King was born on April 25, 1923, in Indianola, Mississippi; half-brother to B.B. King, and, like his more famous sibling, a self-taught guitarist who transformed one of America’s great native art forms. That last part is certainly true, but Albert was no relation to B.B. His birth name was Albert Nelson, and he was probably born in Aberdeen, Mississippi (150 miles from B.B.’s native Indianola), likely in 1923, but possibly a year later.
Timothy Sandefur is Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute. His book 'You Don’t Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty' has just been published by the Cato Institute.
