With all due respect to Koko Taylor, I was surprised to learn that she was considered to be the "Queen of the Blues". I would have thought...you know...Billie Holiday, Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith....

So who decides such matters, anyway? Just about every Taylor obit online seems to include "Queen Of The Blues" in the headline, but Michael Jackson famously demanded that the media refer to him as "The King Of Pop". And although B.B. King is more or less considered the "King of the Blues" primarily because his last name is King (get it?) there is at least one Muddy Waters tribute album entitled...you guessed it, "King Of The Blues".

Is there a "Princess of the Blues"?

I've always had a problem with these titles. I find that, for me, most of the people labled "King" of this or "Queen" of that don't really deserve the title.
I was not a big fan of Koko Taylor, so I certainly wouldn't call her Queen. I think Bessie Smith was the first one to have the title 'Queen of the Blues", and I
believe she was deserving of it.

In his essay on Son House written for one of the AMG's, the great Cub Koda wrote"No one dared to call himself the king of the blues while Son House was alive".
I don't know if this was a direct response to the BB King label, but it could have been.