B. B. King

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.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

You never miss what you’ve never had. I never had any other life. I didn’t know any other life.

I knew that if I went to town on a Saturday, which I did, and there was two fountains, one said “Black” and one said “White.” I didn’t think other than that if you want to stay out of trouble, leave the white one alone. I also noticed that when I went to the restrooms there was one that said “White Men,” “White Ladies” and “Colored.” That’s all I knew. I grew up with it. It wasn’t like somebody just threw me down there and said, “You don’t bother that…” But I was taught that in my early life. My family would always say – because there was people being lynched around me. I haven’t seen people be lynched, but I’ve seen them after they was. And I was told by some of the elders that, you know, “Unless you do certain things this can happen to you or that can happen to you. You don’t bother the white ladies, you don’t do this, you don’t do that,” and I learned that at an early age and to me it was just part of my training. I think this is why black people never did resist for such a long, long time because if there’s any such thing as being brainwashed I was brainwashed, but it didn’t bother me.

I used to play – when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

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 felt like I was making a record under the radar, and that is my favorite way to do anything.

I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later.

I don’t believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

With the birth of the first artist, came the inevitable afterbirth… the first critic

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

He knows I rip him off every day. He’s the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren’t influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

Jazz is not gonna be a dinosaur and stay around in one form.

People love us when we play what we want to play but we’re starving.

People who like Jazz feel the depth and soul and intelligence that the music expresses.

Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents. There must be respect for the people that have gone before.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

Especially, I want my work-and the trios if possible-to sing.

Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.