Bland's son Rodd said his father died about 5:30 p.m. Sunday at his Memphis home surrounded by relatives. His son said he died from complications from an ongoing illness.
Since 2008, Bland had been using a wheelchair to limit his walking but would stand up at his performances, as he did in November when he sang at his induction into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
He was inducted in 1992 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which hailed him as "second in stature only to B.B. King as a product of Memphis' Beale Street blues scene."
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