B. B. King

There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it. Blues was started by the slaves and I think everybody thinks that it all should be sad… even some of the slaves had fun with it.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother’s aunt who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and a few others.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. The blues didn’t have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt; it was there in the songs and voices of singers like Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, in the cries of their guitars.

If there was no ladies, I wouldn’t wanna be on the planet. Ladies, friends, and music – without those three, I wouldn’t wanna be here.

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.

We all played bad before we played good.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

We don’t talk music. We just play.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

As far as music school goes, I walked through Berkelee one time.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

[on Django Reinhardt] By far the most astonishing guitar player ever … Django was quite superhuman, there’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

We quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you’re going to the bank to borrow money.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.