Music Quotes

Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.

I want people to walk away with the same joy, hope and love that I put into my music.

I remember going to sleep many nights with a Gibson catalog, dreaming about getting a Les Paul. I finally did, with a loan from my Dad. It’s a really heavy instrument. But it plays like butter. I met Les backstage at a show once. Jeff Beck made me play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Les, which was a little embarrassing. He changed history, big-time.

I don’t like recording studios – except my own, which is just a little room above the garage.

I don’t meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Something just grabs you about a song.

Music is what feelings sound like.

My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.

If you dig it, do it. If you dig it a lot, do it again.

I think the one thing that I’ve learned is that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit back and try to figure out what people want or leave it up to them to decide. When we all started in this business we would dictate to the audience what was great and they picked up on that based on the fact that we believed that it was great. But that’s all changed. What’s happened in the last ten years or so because is that the technology now means that everyone with a computer can make music and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

When you hear somebody with balls, that’s me.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

I don’t pop my cork for every man I see.

In this era it’s harder for musicians to get together, … Back in the ’80s, we were all at the clubs, you ran into people all the time. Now, everybody’s kind of in their own room with their computers. I use making an album as an opportunity to connect with musicians.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

I’ve seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I’m that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don’t think so.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

Paint pictures with sound. First, find your white-the deepest, roundest sound you can play on the guitar. Then, find your black-which is the most extreme tonal difference from white you can play. Now, just pick the note where you’ve got white, pick it where you’ve got black, and then find all those colors in between. Get those colors down, and you’ll be able to express almost any emotion on the guitar.?