B. B. King

I don’t feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there’s something that I really did do. I believe I’m just ordinary. And I’d like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.

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

I don’t try to just be a blues singer – I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues,’ they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

Notes are expensive… spend them wisely!

I’d solo on my guitar; then sing; then solo; then sing some more. one stopped when the other started. That way I felt a continuity, not a conflict, like a wheel that keeps turning. Both sounds – guitar and voice – were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.

There’s only one bass player in a band. I’m the best bass player of any band I’m in.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.

I don’t intend to be a performing flea anymore. I was the dreamweaver, but although I’ll be around I don’t intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don’t want to die at 40.

We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

People will always need love, romance, a tender touch and really personal and deeply felt music.

The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

I loved the feeling that I got singing.

It’s Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, you know. They got a musical mind together and uh, you can’t explain it.

Music gives us a lot of things and it only wants one thing back… your attention.