B. B. King

For all the hard times and tough challenges I faced during different periods of my life, I think I was lucky or blessed or both. When things looked bleak, a good guide would appear to set me straight. Someone once asked me about the villains who got in my way, the bad guys who wanted to trip me up or take me out. I don’t remember any. Maybe it’s my nature to remember the good and forget the bad, or maybe it’s my destiny to lock onto the righteous for help.

I’m a fan first. I believed Duke Ellington when he said there’s no bad music, just some of it is presented badly. As a kid, hanging around Church Street, the presentation of music was so powerful, I couldn’t help but jump for joy. I had discovered art, or truth, or whatever you want to call it; I had seen a light I’d follow forever.

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.

A lot of people believe what other people say.

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

As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

My version of Georgia became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.

Audiences are smart. They are not going to come out to see you unless you are honest.

There’s a way of playing safe, there’s a way of using tricks and there’s the way I like to play which is dangerously where you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before.

Anyone who doesn’t give [his debut album, The College Dropout] a perfect score is lowering the integrity of the magazine

90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody’s interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.

Well if I could play like Wynton Marsalis, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

That’s a great thing about jazz. We leave it a little space so that we have the opportunity to go where the moment takes us

Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life.

Love songs last because they are about feelings that don’t change.

I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

Man, all music is folk music. You ain’t never heard no horse sing a song, have you?