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Obama Sings Again: Belts A Bit Of 'Sweet Home Chicago'

Blues legend B.B. King during last night's performance at the White House.
Win McNamee
/
Getty Images
Blues legend B.B. King during last night's performance at the White House.
Since we could all use a brief break from the bad news:

It might not be quite as surprising as when he sang a few lines from Let's Stay Together, but President Obama last night belted out a bit of the blues.

During an In Performance at the White House concert featuring B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck and other blues greats, the president sang a bit of Sweet Home Chicago. As The Associated Press reports:

" 'Come on, baby don't you want to go?' the president sang out twice, handing off the mic to B.B. King momentarily, and then taking it back to tack on 'sweet home Chicago' at the end."

An edited version of the show is due on PBS-TV next Monday night. In the meantime, the AP has some highlights on this video.

Update at 10:45 a.m. ET. President's Crooning Disappears From AP's Video, But It's Still Out There:

Our apologies — the video we put up earlier has been "removed by the user" and replaced by a version that doesn't show the president singing. But, there are many other clips showing up on YouTube that still have him included — including this official version from the White House.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.