In this filmmaker interview, Jon Brewer, the producer/director of B.B. King: The Life of Riley, describes how the documentary came to be, his experience of working with B.B. King over the course of two years, and how his own background in the music business helps his film work. Brewer met B.B. King for the first time to interview him for a film on Eric Clapton and Cream. Five years later, King’s manager contacted Brewer to see if he would be interested in making the first documentary about B.B. King. Jon Brewer is also the director of the award-winning biopic feature on Nat King Cole, Afraid of the Dark, commissioned by the Cole family estate and featured on the BBC in the UK. Brewer’s career began in music management in the 1970s and evolved in the 1980s when he founded a video production company.
