B. B. King

I’ve put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

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.

Cotton was a force of nature. There’s a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.

I’d rather be B.B. King. That’s the way I started. Let the heavy metal guys play heavy metal, let the others play the other… I try to do what I do better, not get away from it.

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother’s aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and a few others.

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. He has to get through you first before he gets into the house to get your family. I’m one of those guys who wants to be in that door.

There are a million good tunes.

As far back as I can remember, singing was in my blood. My parents loved music, and I loved to sing. I was scatting at an early age.

Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing even if it does take them 15, 20 years.

The true value of this music lies in an artist’s individual creativity and that unique process of expression which is Jazz.

Damn it, when I’m bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

I’m famous… ain’t that a bitch?

The audience, they’re not professionals. They just love music. It isn’t necessary to play over their heads to be admired.

What have I got? No looks, no money, no education… just talent.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

I could see that Bukka was born to be a bluesman, and I wondered if the same was true of me. I worried that I didn’t have his talent – or the talent of someone like Blind Lemon or T-Bone. I felt something beautiful inside Bukka’s soul. Even if I didn’t follow his style, I was moved by his sincerity. He loved telling stories, and used his blues to tell them. His blues was the book of his life. He sang about his rough times and fast time and loving times and angry times. He’d entertain at a party for two hundred people with the same enthusiasm as a party for twenty. Bukka gave it his all. His music had a consistency I admired. Like all the great bluesmen, he said, I am what I am. I wondered if I could be that steady and strong.

What are you going to do when you love music? You can’t stop.

Musicians should never forget we’re blessed. We have a special gift that people enjoy through us.

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.’