B. B. King

She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.

I don’t think it’s meant for man to know everything at once.

T-Bone was, to me, that sound of being in heaven.

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.

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

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales. I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.

There is a time where you’re beyond yourself, better than your technique, better than your usual ideas.

If a jazz player is really playing, the classical player will have to respect him.

Sometimes I sound like gravel and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

I’m going to be on the road for the rest of my life.

I thought I had swell ideas and wonderful musicians but no one else did.

It’s not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

I’m going to make music out of whatever style it is, being true to the artform itself.

Music is the most fantastic drug there is!

I am only a mixture of countless influences and thanks to that I am able to find my own style of playing.

If I could read it, I could play it.

I hate to think of Jazz as black and white, something political.

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

Count don’t do nothin’. But it sure sounds good.

After two takes you’re imitating yourself.

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.