Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times

B.B. King performs Tuesday night at Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre

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• See photos from Tuesday's show

The B.B. King show of 2008 is not the same as his scorching shows of years past.

King does a lot more talking and not nearly the same amount of playing and singing. But when he sings, the voice is still huge, resonant and on pitch. When he plays his Gibson guitar, "Lucille," the tone, finger vibrato and bends remind listeners that he invented a style of playing that many serious blues artists still try to emulate.

But he’s 82 now, as he reminds his audiences. He is diabetic, and his body doesn’t work as well as it used to, he said.

So, it’s more of a variety show he is bringing these days. And for most of the roughly 1,600 people who came to his Tuesday night show at the 2,000-capacity Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre, that was more than enough.

For King, too, it seems to be enough. Toward the end, he said that some audiences think they’re seeing their last B.B. King concert. Not so, he said.

"I’ll be back again someday for you," he said, before tossing picks and signing autographs for more than five minutes as his seven-piece band played him out.

During a set that lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, King played some of his best-known numbers — "Let the Good Times Roll," "Every Day I Have the Blues," a hyperspeed "When Love Comes to Town" and "The Thrill Is Gone."

When he wasn’t playing his sweet, jazzy, blues lines, he often used a signature move — the back of the right hand clapping into the palm of the left, marking insistent time. Other times, he swivel-danced in his chair. Questions about retirement, love and romance, even erectile dysfunction pills were subjects of long stories and corny jokes — some of which were pretty funny.

He told the crowd about sneaking across the Indianola, Miss., railroad tracks after "a beer and a half" to sneak a drink out of the Jim Crow-era "whites only" fountains.

"Then I’d get scared," he said, adding that he thanked God and everybody else who has made this country better now than it was during segregation.

A hard-core blues fan might not have enjoyed so much banter, but most of the crowd clearly loved it, often shouting back at him as he told his stories.

With King’s wit sharp, his voice strong and his fingers supple — if not nearly as busy — his is still a show worth seeing.