B. B. King

I’d solo on my guitar; then sing; then solo; then sing some more. one stopped when the other started. That way I felt a continuity, not a conflict, like a wheel that keeps turning. Both sounds – guitar and voice – were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.

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.

Water from the white fountain didn’t taste any better than from the black fountain.

I’m more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I’m very proud of my hands.

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.

The Blues? It’s the mother of American music. That’s what is is – the source.

You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

Jazzmen are our surrogates for the unpredictable, our paladins of constant change.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

Difference between sex and love? Well, you’re not always sure you’re in love. But when you’re having sex, there’s really no mistaking it.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

Being a Jazz musician is not a rose garden!

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.

I was not prepared to play the role of singer in the camp of the warriors

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

I always play what I feel. I always feel like me, but I’m a different me every day. I get ideas from everything. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don’t.

I’m always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

Good Jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms and yells. Fine Jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great Jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of Jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.

I could write six songs in one day with everything that’s going on.