B. B. King

Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.

Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That’s what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep… Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such.

If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.

It angers me how scholars associate the blues strictly with tragedy.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’

The emotional reaction is all that matters.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can’t define it beyond that.

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

Good music is good music and everything else can go to hell.

Jazz – it takes passion to make it happen!

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

Forgive me if I don’t have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

I think you have to leave a lot to the imagination!

To work is to feel alive.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about, but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

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.