B. B. King

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.’

I was a singing disc jockey who heard every type of music there was – and loved it all.

What don’t I want to learn? I have how-to books, history, nature. Ain’t nobody here saying, ‘You’d better learn this.’ But I still think I’ve got a head on my shoulders, and it pleases me.

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 remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

I learned another thing from the hurt my cousin gave me – never to give that kind of hurt to anyone else. My revenge was to change a bad feeling into a good one. If I’m working with you and I sense you’re feeling a little insecure, I try to make you feel great. That’s how I get rid of my old hurt. If I don’t do that, my hurt grows and makes me mean and vengeful. But if hurt can change to kindness – that’s something Mama showed me – the world becomes a little less cruel.

Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.

I think music needs to be of its time and speak to that time.

I am very aware that so little has happened to the electric guitar from the time that it was conceived to now; where there are so little changes made where there should be drastic changes made. If we were to put our heads together and start thinking about modern technology we would be much more advantaged with the electric guitar than we are. I think that we’ve been stagnant for many years.

I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.

I write songs about real things… The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

Start well and end well. The middle will look after itself.

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.

Let your life be your music and let your music be your life.

To get the music the way you want it, there’s a lot of work involved.

The more you play, the more you hear and the more you hear, the more you want to play.

I kinda went back to that period between ’88 and ’94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

All I play is truth and emotion.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.