B. B. King

I used to play a place in Twist, Arkansas… It used to get quite cold in Twist. And they used to take something that looked like a big garbage pail and set it in the middle of the floor, half-fill it with kerosene. They’d light that fuel and that’s what we’d use for heat… But this particular night, two guys started to fighting and one of them knocked the other one over onto this container. When they did it spilled on the floor. Now, it was already burning so when it spilled it looked like a river of fire. Everybody ran for the front door including yours truly. But when I got on the outside then I realized that I’d left the guitar inside. I went back for it. The building was a wooden building and it was burning so fast that when I got my guitar it started to collapse around me. So I almost lost my life trying to save the guitar. But the next morning we found that these two guys who were fighting were fighting about a lady. I never did meet the lady but I learned that her name was Lucille. So I named my guitar Lucille to remind me not to do a thing like that again.

The minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

I bought my first electric guitar when I moved to Memphis; a Gibson with a DeArmond pickup which I used with a small Gibson amplifier.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

I don’t feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there’s something that I really did do. I believe I’m just ordinary. And I’d like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about, but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

A great teacher stimulates his student’s creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

It was a great thrill to listen every night and hear him on NBC radio. Les played just as great then. And then later on, in the 1950s, Les Paul turned the whole world on to guitar. He’s just a terrific, flashy, tasty guitarist.

I feel like….Music is the – it’s the answer. It’s the reason.

Everything I’ve ever done was out of fear of being mediocre.

I worked until I could play and do changes at any tempo in any key and said ‘What else is there?’ Now I’m finding out.

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.

I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.