B. B. King

I was a regular hand when I was 7. I picked cotton. I drove tractors. Children grew up not thinking that this is what they must do. We thought this was the thing to do to help your family.

My wife Martha used to call me Ol’ Lemon Face because of my facial contortions when I play Lucille. I squeeze my eyes and open my mouth, raise my eyebrows, cock my head and God knows what else. I look like I’m in torture, when in truth, I’m in ecstasy. I don’t do it for show. Every fiber of my being is tingling.

Any time that people think enough of you to put up something that’s everlasting is only going to make you feel good.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public’s going to like, anyway.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.

When you don’t have much money, you worry that they’ll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won’t know where you are.

First I was working on classical music that didn’t move me at all. I hated it. So I decided to discover the kinds of classical music that did move me—like Chopin, Satie, Beethoven, and certain Mozart songs. Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.

I think you can play anything you wanna as long as you take the audience along with you.

I was walking down the street, and I saw a sewer digger on his lunch hour open his lunch pail, dig out a harmonica, knock out the cracker crumbs, and play a bunch of tunes on it. I was fascinated by that harmonica, so I stared the guy out of it. I just stared at him. He said, ‘Here, kid, take it. Get out of here.’

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

We don’t talk music. We just play.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music.

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress…so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

I always had a deep feeling to be one with the very minute I’m in.

There’s a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

No one remembers who wrote the tune, putting pen to paper in some lonely place. They remember who had the hit.

I feel I have only scratched the surface of what I know I am capable of doing.

It is Jazz’s very nature to change, to develop and adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

I wrote “Pilot of My Destiny” because of my love of flying. The fact that my brother is a pilot inspired me to write it. I call him pilot. He calls me copilot.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.