B. B. King

If you can’t get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.

I was shocked more than most white people to find we had a black President!

I almost chopped my thumb off once. Just before I left home, I was about ten or eleven years old, and I was trying to open a bone. Can you imagine that? A bone! I was trying to get the marrow out of a bone, and I took the ax, and I went to chop it, and something slipped, and the ax went right down there and damn near cut it off

I think I’ve done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe I’d reached that peak. But I’m 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, I’ll be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

I’ve said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

The popular song is America’s greatest ambassador.

It is Jazz’s very nature to change, to develop and adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Actually, I think the more Ben [Taylor] sings, the less like James he sounds.

You never master the instrument. You always just strive to get better.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent’s disapproval.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.

I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.

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

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

How are you going to know what’s new to play if you haven’t listened to everything that’s old?

There’s a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

You only get better by playing.