MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – B.B. King was named entertainer of the year for the seventh straight time and Mavis Staples won three awards at the 26th annual W.C. Handy Awards. Staples won Thursday night for best album with “Have a Little Faith,” which also won soul album, and was named top female soul artist. Charlie Musselwhite also won three awards, with his album “Sanctuary” winning for contemporary album while Musselwhite won for contemporary artist and harmonica. Musselwhite said the blues is a reflection of life. “It’s music played from the heart,” he said. “It celebrates good times and gets you through the bad. I call it my comforter.” The Holmes Brothers was named top band and Staples’ “Have a Little Faith” was crowned top song for writers Jim Tullio and Jim Weidner. John Lee Hooker Jr. won as best new artist. The awards, named for blues pioneer W.C. Handy and called “Handys,” are given out by the Blues Foundation of Memphis. Handy, a band leader who performed in clubs along the city’s famous Beale Street in the early 1900s, is credited with being the first musician to put blues music into written form. Before that, the distinctive American music that sprang from the songs of poor black residents of the Mississippi River Delta was passed along from one artist to another.