B. B. King

If I don’t learn something new every day, it’s a day lost

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

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

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.

I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

Whenever I’m in Kansas City, I think back to all the jazz-blues greats who played the blues here – like Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Jay McShann. I watched those guys jam in different places and heard a lot of things – but I couldn’t do what they did. They were too good.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

I wasn’t so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That’s why I’m broke.

Jazz music has always been a place where anything is possible.

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.

I have no elitist concepts about Jazz. I would not be the musician I am today without experiencing invaluable music styles that are at the roots of African American black life and culture.

My singing evolved with a feeling of intense relaxation, always using my diaphram and breathing specifically through my nose.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

Trying to play the new concept with a outward bound feeling.

Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won’t do much because of my age.