B. B. King

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.

As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.

The problem is that a lot of the blues stations are late on Saturday night, and like a lot of people, I ain’t no vampire!

You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.

In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.

I didn’t want to disrespect my parents, so I never played blues around the house. But I knew then, same as I know today, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I think that before they died, they both felt very proud of me.

Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’ So hush little baby don’t you cry.

It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine.

Jazz is the false liquidation of art, instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.

Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

The audience should feel they are hearing the future, arriving just on time.

Whenever there’s a change with Jazz and its aesthetics, it’s almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.

There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.

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.

I’m a musician at heart, I know I’m not really a singer. I couldn’t compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know

To imitate someone is to insult them.