B. B. King

For all the hard times and tough challenges I faced during different periods of my life, I think I was lucky or blessed or both. When things looked bleak, a good guide would appear to set me straight. Someone once asked me about the villains who got in my way, the bad guys who wanted to trip me up or take me out. I don’t remember any. Maybe it’s my nature to remember the good and forget the bad, or maybe it’s my destiny to lock onto the righteous for help.

I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.

Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.

You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.

I could see the blues was about survival.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often -in fact, mostly -at the expense of everything else in my life.

I like the interplay in the music.

I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.

Women have not been socialized to play drums. It’s not natural for us to hit thing.

It angers me how scholars associate the blues strictly with tragedy.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

Jazz music is a special skill that has brought pleasure to millions throughout the world.

It could be my British need for discipline that makes me admire the American appetite for freedom and passion.

Hipness is what it is. But sometimes hipness is what it ain’t.

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say ‘Here I am,’ and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you’re confident, they’re confident. As long as you adjust to them you’re not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn’t pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.

Ahhh – those Jazz guys are just makin’ that stuff up!

The jazziest American contribution to the vocabulary of English is Jazz itself.